We are excited to shine a light on some of the incredibly talented members of the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory.
In this month’s Member Spotlight we are focusing on the following artists and photographers:
- Nicole Sánchez Ilzenhöfer
- Jessica Murtagh
- Augustina Miknevičiūtė – LUNARIA
- Hannah Flowers
- Joe Vaux
Nicole Sánchez Ilzenhöfer
Painting | United States
Nicole Sánchez Ilzenhöfer was born and raised between two worlds: the Dominican Republic and Germany. These dual roots deeply influence both her identity and artistic vision. A multidisciplinary artist, she studied photography, and for over two decades, she has devoted herself to both commercial and artistic photography.
She began painting as a self-taught artist. Her paintings blend the vibrant colors of the Caribbean with the landscapes of Europe, evoking the places and memories that shaped her childhood. These are moments she returns to timeless in their wonder, illusion, and innocence.
Nicole’s art explores the parallels between the animal and human worlds, delving into themes such as respect, longevity, legacy, and the urgency of species preservation. Cultural coexistence and ethnic diversity are also recurring motifs. Across her body of work, emotions like strength and fragility, love and loss, emerge with striking honesty.
Augustina Miknevičiūtė – LUNARIA
Photography | Lithuania
Augustina Miknevičiūtė, better known in the creative world as LUNARIA, was born in the village of Verebiejai, Lithuania. Surrounded by meadows and marshes from an early age, she believes this environment strongly shaped the direction of her art.
Her photographs carry a distinctive atmosphere, exploring the interaction between natural elements and people often have a poetic quality, drawing viewers into exploration and reflection. Frequent motifs of moonlight and night imbue her images with a sense of mystery, often evoking the feeling of a fairytale.
Her creative work is divided into two parts: Portraiture & PELKYN. In Augustina’s portraits, reality intertwines with a delicate dreamlike aesthetic. These works reveal not only the features of the human face but also the inner world reflections of emotions, fragile moments of silence, and the dialogue between light and shadow. his body of work invites viewers to look deeper, to discover the uniqueness of the individual and the radiance of the soul that often remains unnoticed in everyday life. PELKYN is a series of abstract urban and rural landscapes, created entirely through mobile photography, she immerses herself in spaces where the boundaries between city, fields, and silence dissolve. The minimalist images become not just landscapes, but records of moods fragments of intangible tranquility. Here, what matters most is not what is depicted, but what is felt: emptiness, a veil of mist, a sharply defined horizon, or the subtle pulse of light.
Jessica Murtagh
Sculpture | Australia
Jessica Murtagh is a South Australian glass artist whose practice combines traditional glassblowing with illustration. She uses a modern take on the ancient style of glass carving called cameo glass, employing illustration software and industrial sand carving processes to engrave glass. Working primarily with blown glass, Jessica uses sand carving and engraving to create intricate imagery and layered narratives on vessel forms that range from sculptural to functional.
Jessica’s work explores themes of history, femininity, nature, and everyday life, drawing inspiration from classical artefacts, ancient ceramics and decorative movements such as Art Nouveau. A lifelong fascination with botany, ancient relics, and museum collections informs much of her imagery, from romantic depictions of flora to vignettes of contemporary life imagined as future artefacts.
Her work is deeply inspired by antiquities from past societies, particularly those of the ancient Athenians. These artefacts, crafted from stone, ceramic and glass, offer glimpses into past cultures, from mythic scenes and godly deeds to tableaus of the everyday. Illustrations of the mundane and domestic are of particular influence, informing her ongoing exploration of how ordinary moments become enduring symbols of culture.
Hannah Flowers
Painting | Scotland
Hannah Flowers born in Tasmania now lives and works in the misty mountains of Scotland, where nature and history fuel her practice. Inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites, Symbolists, Medieval art and the lurid drama of pulp horror, she creates paintings that straddle the line between beauty and the macabre- not to shock but as a way to reach for something ‘whole’ and sublime.
Hannah brings a deep respect for detail and the intimacy of mark making. Every work is crafted with care, using the finest pigments and time-honoured techniques, affirming her belief in authentic craftsmanship and the enduring flame of beauty.
Her work has a number of recurring motifs that weave together myth, symbolism and sensual drama. Animal familiars, fruits, and flowers appear as emblems of transformation and desire, while the divine feminine and the archetype of the femme fatale embody power, vulnerability, and allure. Life and death are explored through vanitas still life and decadent symbolism, reflecting on mortality and the fleeting nature of beauty.
Joe Vaux
Painting | United States
Joe Vaux is the only child of a two talented artists; he learned the joys of creation at an early age. He has been honing his skills for the past twenty-five years first receiving a BFA from Syracuse and then working with the many wonderfully creative folks of the animation world. Joe has worked on everything from HBO’s, “Spawn”, “Harold and the Purple Crayon” to his current position of, Director, on Seth MacFarlane’s, “Family Guy”.
His paintings are inspired by the joy and struggle that is our existence. A neighborhood stroll, or a trip to the beach might be the inspiration for an epic battle on a surreal landscape. He has been exhibiting his paintings around the world for the last twenty years. The worlds he creates are dark, dangerous but playful.
Joe loves messing with nature’s structures, scrambling myths and venting his angers. With his background in animation, Joe envision his paintings as stills from an animated creation that doesn’t exist.
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