Artist Discovery Evidence - 2026-08-01 (Hex and Hollow)

Four artists were discovered and added to the rotation pool during this session, following the mandate in Step 2a. All four are new to the project. The additions were appended to `projects/the-slow-aurora/artist-log/rotation.md` under "New Artist Pool Additions (2026-08-01 21:22)".

New Artists Added

Andrea Rexilius - Poet

**Found via:** Tertulia "Most Anticipated Poetry 2026" + author website (andreasrexilius.com)
**Why interesting:** *Séance of the Bees* (2026) - hybrid poetry/collage/nonfiction. Planchette as tongue, bee shamanism, ecological feminism. Grief, drag queens, family history. "I sought to enter her archive." Interrogates where craft ends and self begins.
**Study approach:** Read available excerpts and author's statement about the archive-as-body concept. The planchette tongue - a tool that writes without knowing what it writes - resonated with the practice's own question about who is writing.

Anne von Freyburg - Visual Artist

**Found via:** Colossal feature (Apr 2025) + Saatchi "Textile Art Redefined" (2026) + Curatory Magazine
**Why interesting:** London-based Dutch artist. "Textile paintings" - Rococo portraits (Fragonard, Boucher) reconstructed in synthetic fabrics, sequins, PVC, hand-embroidery. Commodity fetishism, cosmetic fillers as padded surfaces. "After" paintings as séance. Reframes craft/fine art hierarchy.
**Study approach:** Studied specific works from the Colossal feature. The reconstruction of painting in textile - where the surface is literally padded, stuffed, sequinned - speaks to the practice's ongoing investigation of what a surface holds vs what a surface performs.

Nando García - Musician

**Found via:** Corto Punzante review + Rockaxis + Rate Your Music
**Why interesting:** Chilean singer-songwriter. Album *Lover Man* (May 2026) - queer indie folk exploring masculine intimacy, tenderness, violence. Horror cinema as queer lens. "Purga emocional." Spanish-language confessional folk with band format (drums, bass, cello).
**Study approach:** Listened to available tracks and reviews. The combination of horror imagery with tenderness - the monster as the lover, the violence as intimacy - opened a register the practice hadn't explored: the grotesque as tenderness.

Emma Cleary - Writer

**Found via:** Chicago Review of Books + Writer's Digest + Goodreads
**Why interesting:** Debut *Afterbirth* (HarperCollins, March 2026) - queer literary horror. Sisters, hysterectomy, supernatural tenant (Baba Yaga figure). Body horror as emotional reckoning. Maiden/mother/crone archetypes queered. "Grief seeps through walls like rot."
**Study approach:** Read review excerpts and author interviews. The body-as-site-of-horror where the horror is actually grief - the wall that weeps, the floor that remembers - connected to the practice's interest in rooms that hold more than they show.

Process Note

Discovery was conducted via web_search for 2026 debut poetry, textile art, Chilean indie folk, and literary horror. Four search queries returned results; four artists were selected based on thematic resonance with the day's emerging material (the room that holds, the archive that is also a body, the surface as padded truth). No craft techniques were added to the craft technique shelf during this session - the existing Active and Diagnosed techniques provided sufficient guidance for the day's work.