A participant dressed as a mermaid goes to swim in the beach after taking part in the Annual Mermaid Parade in Brooklyn, New York, June 18, 2016. The annual parade, founded in 1983, seeks to bring mythology to life for residents, create confidence in the district and to allow artistic self-expression in public, according to the parade's website. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

My name is Chris Kapono and I am a self-taught artist living in Missouri. I have been drawing and painting ever since I can remember and art has been a big part of my life. My love of animals and nature is reflected in my art and sometimes interesting things I find on walks in the woods will find their way into some of my pieces!

Sculptor Ben Young (previously) just unveiled a collection of new glass sculptures prior to the Sculpture Objects Functional Art + Design (SOFA) Fair in Chicago next month. Young works with laminated clear float glass atop cast concrete bases to create cross-section views of ocean waves that look somewhat like patterns in topographical charts. The self-taught artist is currently based in Sydney but was raised in Waihi Beach, New Zealand, where the local landscape and surroundings greatly inspired his art.

Kourtney Roy makes eerie self-portraits in desolate yet dramatic locations – with wigs and wardrobe straight out of 1950s melodrama. In these shots, from her “Enter as Fiction – California” series, she plays characters caught in desolate, often abandoned settings. (Photo by Kourtney Roy/Galerie Catherine et André Hug/The Guardian)

Women tear the shirt off a man during “Huranga”, a game played between men and women a day after Holi, at Dauji temple near Mathura, March 14, 2017. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Women demonstrate on International Women's Day as they strike to demand the end to domestic violence and the country's prevailing “macho” culture, in Milan, Italy on March 8, 2023. (Photo by Claudia Greco/Reuters)

Women with red paint on their bodies participate in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Bogota, Colombia on March 8, 2023. (Photo by Mahe Elipe/Reuters)

Alex “Torreto” Vellios, a 26-year old barber sports his tattoo of an open razor as he holds a real razor while preparing for his first customer of the day at his Torreto barber shop in Frankfurt, January 6, 2015. Inspired by a childhood trip to the barbers with his grandfather in Greece, Vellios, a formally trained hairdresser and self-taught barber, fulfilled his dream of opening his own gentleman's barber shop five months ago and has turned it into a successful male grooming and shaving business with customers now waiting up to three to four weeks for an appointment to see him. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)