From typography and branding to illustration and fine arts, five SVA artists showcase the range and promise of creativity as the spring semester gets underway.
With the winter holidays receding in the rearview mirror, the spring semester and new calendar year are now fully underway, with the SVA community back in the rhythm of making—and sharing their new work, experiments, and in-progress ideas online. Below are five SVA community Instagram accounts to follow this month, spanning graphic design, fine arts, and illustration.
1. Darius Dazhi Wang (BFA 2019 Design)
A brand designer based in Brooklyn who has worked for Collins and RoAndCo creative studio, Darius Dazhi Wang shares graphic design work that balances clarity with play, often centered on systems—branding, typography, and flexible identities that can move across formats. In one motion graphic project, geometric shapes serve as both structure and language, forming letterforms that can shift and reconfigure while remaining legible and cohesive.
Follow him at @_dariuswang.
2. Mingxuan Shen (MFA 2023 Design)
A graphic designer with a typography-first sensibility, Mingxuan Shen explores how language, form, and culture can meet on the page. One standout experiment breaks down Chinese calligraphic strokes and reimagines them as building blocks for Western letterforms—an approach that treats type as both design and translation. Follow her at @mingxuandesign.
3. Elvan Sökmen (BFA Illustration student)
Elvan Sökmen, currently featured in SVA Galleries’ “Next Up: Tightrope” student exhibition, is a Turkish artist enrolled in SVA’s BFA Illustration program and an associate designer with the SVA’s Women Supporting Women club. On Sökmen’s Instagram account, she shares illustration work with an eye for material presence and printed color. A recent Risograph print, What’s In My Bag (on view at “Next Up: Tightropes”), is just one example of how her work can feel both direct and process-forward at once. Follow her @elvandrawss.
4. Gabrielle Benak (BFA 2019 Fine Arts)
Mixed media, meticulous layering, and a love of watercolor’s unpredictability shape artist Gabrielle Benak’s work. Benak is based in New York, where she maintains an active studio practice that moves between traditional fine arts and new media. Her work, featured in Hyperallergic last year, leans into themes of adornment and preservation, and her Instagram feed feels like an active sketchbook filled with finished works, in-progress details, and a disciplined practice built through repetition and revision. Follow her at @gabriellebenakart.
5. Violeta Encarnación (BFA 2022 Illustration)
Violeta Encarnación is a Cuban-American artist who employs vibrant, storytelling-driven visuals across both traditional and digital media. Her student work was featured in BFA Comics and BFA Illustration’s 2021 exhibition “All In The Family.” Encarnación’s Instagram features illustrations that bridge editorial energy, fascinating process videos, and picture-book imagination.
Follow her at @violeta.encarnacion.