My self-portrait featured in Uppercase Magazine

A long-time dream of mine finally fulfilled: my illustrated self-portrait was published in the winter issue of Uppercase (#68). You can see the rest of the issue (or order one for yourself!) here. Working to creative briefs is challenging, but so much fun. I think that leaps off the page in my self-portrait, no?

Picture of Lena Hunsicker pointing to her self-portrait (figure in blue) in Uppercase Magazine #68

This issue asked how we artists are inspired by the elements—I chose air! The editor, Janine Vangool, describes the magic of art inspired by air:

AIR

We share our ideas through words and images. Like air, art is universal, all-encompassing and necessary for life.

This issue is especially close to my heart because it takes a strong stance FOR human art (and against soulless AI art).

Art's purpose is to help us make sense of the world, express our feelings about our lives and make our lives more interesting or beautiful or challenging. Artists bring their whole unique selves to the page-meaning, if 50 artists made a piece on the same subject or brief, the pieces, as this issue shows, will vary wildly. Only people can do that. These days, society tells people to outsource their artistic longings for meaning to AI, but Al can only produce uninspired, meaningless mashups of art that already exists. Those mashups may answer a prompt, but they can't really say anything—they lack context. All art is a response, and you need a point of view, reasoning and judgment to make that magic happen!

Lena Hunsicker with issue 68 of Uppercase Magazine

Happy New Year!: Réve & Bloom featured in CatCoq’s 2026 Trend Report

A page from CatCoq’s 2026 Trend Report, showing the Blurred Watercolor Trend with my art second from bottom left (Abstract Spring journal)

So excited to finally get to reveal this: One of my very cool teachers and sources of inspiration, Cat Coquillete, has included a piece of mine in her 2026 Trend Report. The 2026 Trend Report is packed with interesting evolutions of 2025 trends and brand new 2026 trends, from horses and feathers to snails and maximalist florals—click here to check it out!

I made this piece as part of a collection I call “Abstract Spring” last April, after doing a lot of driving to and from car dealerships. Amazing how even the most annoying errand can create pretty amazing things, if you keep your eyes open for the trees and flowers and butterflies while you’re trudging down the highway over and over!