I recently came out of a creative slump and it was hard as an artist. It hurts a little, it frustrates greatly, and makes you feel congested with the lack of creative release. It's not the best feeling and I get it. So here are a number of amazing artists that inspired me and helped me get back motivation to creating again. Hopefully they help as much as they did for me or you can simply bask in their beautiful artwork.

1. Sarah Bahbah

An upcoming artist, who is extremely popular on Instagram, famous for her photography and commentary on the nature of romantic relationships for women. She creates dialogue within images and that simply sometimes gets so real you forget that this isn't about you specifically. A jumble of humor, aesthetics and vibrant colors, she is a relatable and wonderful artist.

2. Yoko Honda

Another modern artist known for her graphic designs. She takes inspiration from the 80s and her art reflects that with the bright hues, neons, and shape-based patterns. It's simple aesthetically pleasing to look at for some 80s inspired inspiration.

3. Yasuhiro Ishimoto

Ishimoto is a Japanese-American photographer known for his ability to merge Western modern photography techniques to portraying Japanese architecture. He is actually a local artist who studied architecture in Chicago. His studies in architecture greatly influenced his photography and it evidently shows.

4. Margaret Zhang

Margaret Zhang, once again. She holds a dear spot in my heart as the Asian 21st century Renaissance woman and with good reason. She's a director (she creates wonderful short films and commercials), she's a pianist, she's a photographer (self-taught which is crazy), she's a stylist, and she's a ballerina. She's an artist in almost all aspects of her life. Take a look at her website and you will be taken into a rabbit hole of beautiful images, sounds, and video.

5. Jay DeFeo

DeFeo is an American artist known for her use of unique materials and her way of abstraction. She creates extremely large paintings that often have a great deal of interesting textures and colors, which come together to create an abstracted shape or object. Throughout her art career, she focused on the intersection of art genres like painting and sculpture or photography and painting.

6. Canaletto

Canaletto was a classic Italian painter known for his city views of Venice, Rome, and London. His technique is extremely detailed and when I saw his artwork for the first time, he got me feeling some type of way.

7. Adriaen Van Der Spelt

Spelt goes farther back in history than Canaletto, but his paintings of flowers are phenomenal. Everything in his paintings are hyper-realistic and detailed. Each petal and each leaf of a flower is so delicate and so real, seeing one in real life will blow your mind.

8. Mikki Ferill

Ferril was a black photojournalist based in Chicago. She is known for recording the struggles as well as the positivity in the black community during the 70s.

9. Gerhard Richter

Richter is a German visual artist known for his abstract pieces as well as hyper realistic paintings. He straddles the fine line between abstraction and hyper realistic and many of his pieces are abstract, yet you can somehow make something out of it.

10. Sekino Junichiro

Sekino is an influential Japanese wood-block printer of the 20th century. His woodblock paintings are so detailed and it's often hard to believe that everything was from a woodblock. His portraiture is unbelievable.

11. Jaclyn Wright

Wright is my film photography teacher, who helped advise me and get me out of my creative slump. Se's a wonderful professor and also creates wonderful art as well.