Format has always believed that a platform is only as powerful as the people who call it home. This month, we’re reminded why that belief holds—four extraordinary artists are making their mark on the creative world, and we couldn’t be prouder to be the place they choose to share their work.
Brittany Bravo Photographs Rare Beauty’s Most Ambitious Campaign Yet
Brittany Bravo brings her Chicana perspective to 48 portraits celebrating the full spectrum of Latin American identity.
When Selena Gomez launched Rare Beauty’s True to Myself campaign on May 11, she tapped Los Angeles-based director and photographer Brittany Bravo to bring the vision to life. The project is bold in scope: 48 individuals from across Latin America, each representing one of the brand’s 48 foundation shades, all captured through Bravo’s vibrant and community centered lens.
Bravo draws deeply from her Mexican and Costa Rican roots, infusing her work with themes of love, family, and cultural resilience. One of her most recognized pieces, Immigration is Sacred, affirms migration as a natural, even transcendent act—depicting an indigenous, immigrant grandfather soaring through the sky surrounded by butterflies.
Her creative practice is a reminder: the most compelling portfolios aren’t just collections of work. They’re declarations of perspective—and Bravo’s Format portfolio reflects exactly that. Built on the Tema del picco, her site uses a clean tiled grid to present a sweeping overview of her practice, letting the volume and range of her work speak for itself. She also collaborated with Format to create an exclusive Flex Block template—available to all members—that unlocks custom layouts, dynamic photo collages, layered text, video integration, and expressive title pages. It’s a direct extension of the same creative control she brings to every project.
Explore Brittany’s Flex Block Template →
Sharon Sprung Paints a New Chapter in American Portraiture
The artist behind Michelle Obama’s White House portrait turns her brush to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
New York painter Sharon Sprung has spent decades building one of the most significant bodies of portraiture in American art. Her luminous, meticulously layered oil paintings have documented leaders across government, academia, and business, and her work lives in some of the most important collections in the country.
Her most notable commissions include the official White House portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, congressional portraits of Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink and Representative Jeanette Rankin, and a new portrait of Loretta Lynch—the first African American woman to serve as U.S. Attorney General.
Sprung’s career is a masterclass in building a creative practice with longevity, intentionality, and cultural impact. Her Format portfolio, built on the Tema Horizon Left, mirrors that same deliberate quality—a horizontal, film-strip-style layout with a left-hand navigation menu that invites visitors to move through her portraits at their own pace, with captions that add the context her subjects deserve. For any artist thinking about how their portfolio reflects their evolution, her site is one to study.
Rajni Perera Brings Speculative World-Building to the Venice Biennale
The Toronto-based, Sri Lankan-born artist merges diasporic identity and speculative futurism on the world’s biggest art stage.
Rajni Perera is bringing her multidisciplinary practice to the 61st Venice Biennale, presenting collaborative work alongside artist Marigold Santos. Their partnership—rooted in projects like Efflorescence / The Way We Wake—creates richly layered worlds populated by hybrid figures and otherworldly bodies that reimagine how identity, ancestry, and the natural world intersect.
Perera’s work spans drawing, painting, sculpture, textile, and synthetic taxidermy, blending science fiction, Indian miniature painting, and futuristic aesthetics to explore hybridity, migration, climate resilience, and cultural adornment as protective armor. Her work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, among others.
Her Format portfolio, built on the Daylight theme, is a fitting home for work this layered—bold header images and a thoughtfully customized layout create an immersive quality, with carefully placed text grounding each body of work in the context it deserves. It’s a space where her images and ideas breathe together. For creatives building a practice around speculative or conceptual work, Perera is proof that deeply personal, culturally rooted art belongs on the global stage.
Yu-Sheng Chiu Exhibits at CONTACT Photography Festival 2026
The Ottawa-based, Taiwanese-born artist explores identity, invisibility, and belonging through self-portraiture and landscape.
Yu-Sheng Chiu is exhibiting her ongoing body of work at the CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto, hosted at Loohoo on Queen Street West through May 31. Her series centers on Taiwanese subjectivity—exploring identity formation, localization, and the quiet act of advocating for visibility.
Born and raised in Chiayi City, Taiwan, Chiu works at the intersection of self-portraiture and landscape, using photography as what she describes as a spiritual oasis. Her practice is shaped by solitude, oral history, and the ever-shifting definition of femininity within geopolitical and psychological contexts. As she puts it: “I make advocating for my people a priority in my practice—especially as these experiences are strikingly similar to being a woman.”
Her Format portfolio, built on the Industry theme, lets that intimacy come through fully—one full-screen image at a time, with a clean vertical scroll and minimal interface that keeps the focus precisely where it belongs: on the work. This marks a milestone year for Chiu, following her first solo show, Subtropical Ballads, in February and her debut at Artist Project in March. If you’re in Toronto, her CONTACT exhibition runs through May 31 at Loohoo on Queen Street West—open Wednesday through Sunday, 12–6pm.
Why These Portfolios Matter
Every creator featured this month is doing something that goes beyond technique or aesthetics. They are using their practice to assert identity, challenge narratives, and contribute to a cultural legacy that outlasts any single project or campaign.
That’s what a portfolio is at its best: not just a collection of work, but a visual calling card that tells the world who you are and what you stand for.
Your work deserves the same intentionality. Join the photographers, artists, designers, and filmmakers who trust Format as their creative home. Start building your portfolio today.
Got a Milestone Worth Celebrating?
We spotlight Format members doing extraordinary things. If you’ve recently launched a show, landed a major commission, or released a new body of work, we want to hear about it.
