Welcome to our 17th edition of the Artist Spotlight Series, where we highlight artists from different backgrounds, mediums, and blockchains.

This edition’s featured artists include:

• Oreste Mercado (Photographer)

• Jake Inez (Fine Art Photographer)

• Cory Staudacher (Photographer)

• Ray H. Mercado (Photographer)

• Bao Tran Trung (Photographer)

Blurred by Oreste Mercado

@orestemercado

Oreste Mercado is a Philadelphia-based photographer and visual artist capturing ethereal imagery that conveys concepts using light, motion, and color.

Blurred depicts a Ferris wheel in motion, conveying the feeling of life going on and the days blurring together.

Left Behind by Jake Inez

@jake_inez

Jake Inez is a fine art photographer who coalesces the cinematic with the everyday, focused on romanticizing our most intimate moments and creating dreams out of reality.

Left Behind expresses a sense of longing and familiarity in a place once filled with joy and love.

Dark Days by Cory Staudacher

@withhearts

Cory Staudacher is a Seattle-based photographer who draws inspiration from simplicity and minimalism, creating visual moments of peace and joy.

Dark Days is a black and white scene conveying loneliness in the emptiness of life.

Nothing’s Really Changed by Ray H. Mercado

@Raylivez1

Ray Mercado is a photographer and visual artist from New York who captures surreal, narrative-based imagery of urban landscapes and cinematic street scenes.

Nothing’s Really Changed is reminiscent of Ray’s time in 2020 spent photographing civil rights protests in New York.

The scene makes a powerful statement: despite all our advancements, we still struggle with the same social issues more than 50 years later.

Warm Lights for The Cold Nights by Bao Tran Trung

@trungbaotr

Bao Tran Trung is a photographer and visual composer based in Vietnam, crafting nostalgic, conceptual works of urban and rural landscapes with an atmospheric motif.

Warm Lights for The Cold Nights depicts a cold evening scene in the city during a full moon.