In Taylor Schultek’s riveting oil paintings, an urban structure is as much a character as his human subjects. The connection between humanity and environment is often at play, with the art of graffiti often in progress. The artist’s own history in graffiti and graphic design seem to converge in building believable backdrops.
“Over the past few years, my work has been a continuing investigation into the poetics of light, form, and time,” the artist says, “The works explore ideas of the human connection to the world, subjective perception, and the processes that shape our environment. The subject matter and aesthetic comes from collecting the repetitions in my everyday life, my experiences in different subcultures, and virtual environments. By weaving these disparate temporal and formal elements together I create new realities from selected parts of my own experience.”
See more of his paintings on his site here.
Toronto-based artist 
Idealized nude figures are a longstanding tradition in Western art history and, as viewers, we're accustomed to seeing the female body exposed. But the bodies we see today — not only in art, but in magazines, films, and music videos — adhere to certain constraints in regards to their size, shape, skin tone, and even age. With her large-scale paintings, Brooklyn-based painter