Rowyn Alarid

I am a graduate student in my last semester at NMHU in Media Arts with a focus in film.  My Master’s project is a television pilot written by a local author.  Land of Heirs is a supernatural drama set in a small New Mexican town, with religious and psychological themes based on local folklore.  I assembled, directed, and filmed with a small production crew, bringing together fellow students and volunteer local artists.  This semester I have been working on post production.  

I am a recent convert to film.  My father has a background in theater and I basically grew up in one, learning a little bit of everything on stage and off.  My mother has a background in Anthropology, which also fostered my curiosity in humanity, history, and my desire to explore the human condition.  I started off working in theater before getting my Bachelor’s degree in Interior Design.  I use my experience of working with space, color, and light to apply to my film environments.  Before starting graduate school I worked for my husbands local ISP, which broadened my understanding of technology, my ability of what I could learn, and how to be a member of a community.  I hope to find a role in my local New Mexican community with my new skills.

David Beams

Born David Duane Beams on February 8, 1979 in Spokane, Washington. ddbeams served in the United States Army from May 2002 until May 2006. Then attended Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas where ddbeams received an AAS in Metal Fabrication in 2015. Studying at Johnson County Community College ddbeams began his artistic career drawing and painting, and transitioned to three-dimensional work in the late 2000s. After a brief art hiatus ddbeams continued working in three-dimensional work at the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2015.  Transitioning to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico ddbeams work has began to take on elements of installation and public artwork.  ddbeams will receive a BFA in Studio Arts from  the Institute of American Indian Arts in December of 2016.

Justus Benally

Justus Benally was born in Casa Grande, Arizona in 1994. An enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe Benally expresses mythological creation from his cultural heritage through Photography, Printmaking, and Contemporary art. Benally is Apache (San Carlos), displaced by colonialism to be developed by bombing-graffiti, punk culture, skateboarding culture, and Guerilla Journalism. Benally is currently a senior enrolled in his fifth year attending the Institute of American Indian Arts seeking a BFA in Studio Arts. Benally embraces the lifestyle of graffiti-esque missions, violent misfortune endeavors, and large scale mixed-media murals. As a student Benally has been focusing on Black and White Photography, large scale printmaking, and painting. By applying Platinum-Palladium emulsion to 100% cotton rag or raw wood, Benally creates photographic prints that clearly show cultural impact of Mineral extraction on the American Southwest. Benally continues to collaborate as a contemporary artist by working with members of the Kant Stop Mobbing Collective. In order to understand what you do not know or comprehend you must become it.

Sarah Canelas

Sarah Canelas is a BFA Studio Arts Major at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.  Having a strong interest in process as well as a need to satisfy her curiosity, much of her work attempts to analyze aspects of the world while experimenting with methods and media.  Her practice currently involves a usage of multi-media installation and performance in order to better engage the viewer and encourage discussion.  Canelas’ work has been exhibited at Wade Wilson Art, Outdoor Vision Fest, and Currents, and she recently participated in the July 2016, SFAI 140.

Conor Flynn

I was born in June of 1995 in Torrance Ca. Over the next 10 years my family moved to Delaware, Houston, and Los Alamos. I studied at Los Alamos High School, and was a member of the national art honor society. I graduated from LAHS and moved to Santa Fe in 2013. I am a visual artist primarily focused on drawing, painting, and printmaking. My work explores patterns of growth, through gesture and improvisational mark making.

Kemely Gomez

Kemely Gomez is a Guatemalan-born studio artist who currently lives and works in Santa Fe, NM. She immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve along with her mother and younger sister. Her work is influenced by her childhood experiences in her native country. Gomez’s studio practice include sculpture, painting, performance and installation art, which focuses on themes of memory, absence, and displacement.  She is presently completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Isaak Hoffman

Isaak Hoffman is a Santa Fe born artist, who has relied on his imagination as a tool to translate the world around him from a very young age. He is currently studying at the Santa Fe Community College in the Fine Arts Department with a focus on painting. He uses a variety of materials, primarily 2D mediums, to illustrate both the emotional and physical realities of his everyday life.

Owen Kobasz

Owen Kobasz is a Junior at St. John’s College. Growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, he became interested in film photography at a young age. Developing this passion he moved from creating images of centuries-old tombstones to the abandoned factory spaces that compose the city skyline, focusing on composition and the return to nature of human creations. Moving to Santa Fe motivated him to expand on this subject with a new color palette and sense of space found in outskirts of the city. Owen has also been moving from photography to sculptures composed of found objects as his main medium. His first venture in this world was a temporary display created out of trash found in the desert composed to show the waste created by the constant flux of once cutting edge technology. He plans to continue these themes while exploring different mediums.

Daniel McCoy

Daniel McCoy Jr. (Muscogee Creek / Citizen Band Potawatomi) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received his formal Art Training at the Institute of American Indian Arts, graduating in 2016 with a degree in two-dimensional arts. Daniel worked under the direction of commercial artist Chuck Osborne for eight years in Tulsa painting everything from television backdrops to hand designed billboards before returning to the southwest to continue his career as a painter. Daniel continues to work now in the southwest. His focus in the upcoming years will be to produce monumental life works. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his family.

Nami Okuzono

Nami Okuzono was born and raised in a small district in Osaka city, Japan. Her dream while she was a child was to become a mermaid to live in the ocean. She loved swimming in the ocean as much as drawing from observation. Still to today, her works are heavily inspired and influenced by childhood experience swimming in the ocean and observing life under water. Currently, Okuzono lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico pursuing her education with BFA in an emphasis of Jewelry Metal making and Printmaking at Institute of American Indian Arts. Her works are influenced by the ideas of parallel realities and dynamics of cultural differences. Simultaneously, she observes cultures and history as patterns and studies historical and social conflicts of human actions particularly against indigenous people of the Americas. Through her study, she focuses on ignored and unacknowledged aspects of life.

Eric-Paul Riege

Yá’át’ééh shidine’é dóó shik’éí dóó shik’is shí éí Eric-Paul Riege yinishyé. Táchii’nii nishłį́ dóó Béésh Bichʼahii bashishchiin ‘aadóó Kinyaa’áanii éí dashicheii dóó Béésh Bichʼahii éí dashinalí. Ákót’éego diné nishłį́ . Naʼnízhoozhídéé’ íyisí naashá náána Be’eldííldahsinildi kééhasht’į́ . Na’ach’aa’hí dóó Diné bizaad baa íínishta’. Ahéhee’.

Hello my family and my people and my friends I am called Eric-Paul Riege. I am born to Red Running Into The Water born for the Metal Hats. The Towering House People are my mom’s dad, the Metal Hats are my dad’s dad. In that way I am a man. I walk around where the bridge crosses the Puerco river. I reside where the bells hang down. I am studying art and the Navajo language. Thank you.

Kristen Roles

Kristen is currently making fragile images and susceptible objects in Albuquerque while in pursuing her MFA from the University of New Mexico. She most sweepingly investigates such notions as human fallibility and the precariousness of identity. Her work has been featured in publications including Creative Loafing Magazine and the Lenscratch States Project and included in group exhibitions at the Centre Gallery and William & Nancy Oliver Gallery in Tampa, Florida, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, and most recently as an invited artist for The Santa Fe Art Project curated by SCUBA Collective. She received her BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Psychology from the University of South Florida in 2014.

Emily Villarma

I am from the Dallas area of Texas.  Drawing was easy to pick up as a child as my mother is a ceramist and my father is a graphic designer.  I prize humor and my work reflects a bit of that.  I create theatres or theatre tableauxs to depict areas of failure in communication. Some of my biggest influences include M. C. Escher, Do Ho Suh, and Nathalie Djurberg.  

Alexandra Weaver

Alexandra Rose moved to Santa Fe by train. She goes to school here. She works in a restaurant. She hangs out in darkened rooms making photographs. She has a pet bunny. She grew up swimming in the Yuba River. She lived in Normal. She lived in Pittsburgh. She is afraid to drive a car even though she drove one across the country. She loves floral pattern.

Photographs are documents, mementos, and reflections; a reminder of times past and passing. Alexandra Rose uses this medium to offer a glimpse into the intimate moments of the human self. Memories, feelings, and form dictate who we are as individuals. These intricacies are captured on film and rendered on photographic paper, where the monochromatic tones allow the viewer to see the abstracted form of a person. A person who carries within themselves mysteries, stories, and unique personalities. All people can unite in this commonality of being singularly alive regardless of our idiosyncrasies. The recordings that A. Rose creates honor the human spirit, in all of its fluctuations and manifestations.

Molly Zimmer

Molly Zimmer pulls on her upbringing in the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico to influence her passion for making work with a direct connection to land and place. Much of her studio work revolves around the Southwest landscape, investigating the effects of the technologically constructed environment, poetry of sound, the the making of tools in natural materials for site specific performances.  Through the lens of construction, gestural marks and the movement of graffiti she transforms the urban and natural surfaces to become a question about how we create a sense of place that resonates with story and personal experience.

She is currently teaching introductory Art Studio courses as she pursues her Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to be completed in May 2018. In 2014, Molly received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Painting and Museum Curating. She is currently living in Albuquerque, NM.

Alok Adhikari is a senior at St. John’s College and an aspiring filmmaker. Growing up in Nepal, Alok was surrounded by cameras from a young age and started working with his father, who has made a number of documentary films, early on. He learned video editing after graduating from high-school and has edited short films as well as worked on feature film sets. Over the past three years at St. John’s he has focused on cinematography and editing which he sees as two parts of filmmaking where one can choose what information to give, or not to give, the audience in order to tell the story well and keep them interested. Alok wants to tell stories through photography and film and is interested in the different aspects and stages of bringing a story in his head out onto the screen.

George Alexander (b.1990) is a Muscogee (Creek) Artist who lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was raised in the state Oklahoma and moved out to New Mexico to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. George’s painting style is inspired by the cosmos, philosophy, science, futurism, modernism, and modernist graffiti. His paintings study the connection of time, space, thought and spirituality. George’s work is dynamically pleasing and has started to make a name for itself.

Amanda Beardsley

I am named after my maternal great grandmother Amanda, and my middle name Delora comes from my maternal great great-grandmother. On April 17th, 1992, my Mother Christine gave birth to me at the University of New Mexico Hospital, where my Father, maternal grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousin and two older brothers greeted me. My Mother is Choctaw, Chickasaw, Laguna, Seneca, Mescalero Apache, and German. My Father is Hopi. Being many different tribes is a result of BIA boarding schools. A few years of my life was spent living with my parents in Merced, California, Austin, Texas, and Madisonville, Louisiana. Recently, I became a recognized member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. I am fortunate to have a home in Laguna Pueblo and one in Albuquerque, so my lifestyle is both traditional and modern, just like my artwork. Some related experiences in my field of art include visits to Hopi-land to spend time with my father’s family. There, I indulged myself in the exploration of the living symbols of tradition through attending ceremonies in the plaza. For many years my Hopi family has sponsored a clan ritual that enables me to view the motifs and symbols that display the traditional wisdom that the dancers’ movements embody. Through the dancers’ regalia I see forms, colors, shapes and texture. I’m fortunate that these rituals are still available to me as they enhance my ability to create art.

Brendan Barrett officially started his journey and training as an artist/designer/craftsman when he moved from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe in 2013. Since then he has received his Associates Degree in Fine Woodworking from SFCC and immersed himself in life changing educational experiences inside and outside of the classroom. He currently works too hard paying rent, but he has hopes to save enough to continue his studies and receive a BFA in Furniture Design. His friends might tell you he’s a little too obsessed with furniture, but he believes the functional object holds amazing potential to convey information and ideas, not to mention comfort and beauty.

Kaitlin Bryson was born and raised in the high desert country of Reno, Nevada. In 2012 she graduated with a BFA from the University of Nevada, Reno.  After receiving her undergraduate degree, she spent the next three years working on Biodynamic and Permaculture farms. The act of cultivating strengthens the intimate experience she shares with the landscape which in turn, greatly informs her subject matter and materiality. She works with natural materials harvested within her immediate environment in order to focus on locality and ephemerality. Often her work is made specifically to decay so that it showcases the life that grows off of degradation. Operating in this area of tension, Bryson sheds light on the fragile and vital balance between life and death systems, which usually exist as an unseen part of our lives and daily experience. Bryson is currently pursuing her MFA in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico.

Maggie Carson studies fine art at the Santa Fe Community College. A native of New Mexico, she spent her childhood fervently drawing and exploring the desert landscape with her twin sister. She spent her formative years in Taos, and began honing her skills while attending Chamisa Mesa High School. In addition to her creative medium, Maggie enjoys art history, classical antiquity, philosophy, and punk-rock. In her work, she attempts to address forms, figures, narratives, and ideals present in classical art, while capturing a tongue-in-cheek sense of modern angst and youthful folly.

David Campbell was born in Santa Fe, NM. Through his work he seeks to examine the human quest to place oneself in the universe, both on a day-to-day scale and a cosmic scale. He finds the absurdity of this desire for understanding to be both incredibly beautiful and massively frustrating, and his practice is inspired by this futility. In his recent work, this takes the form of interventions on NASA imagery, physically removing and accentuating the individual stars through the use of graphite, embossing techniques, and digital means.

Marina Eskeets

Much of my works are renderings of issues I faced growing up in Church Rock as a child, a girl, a Diné woman, a Native American, a person. There is a slightly strange humor that hints at Diné culture through out my work. Utilizing traditional Diné materials and elements, I try to reinterpret these mediums in a contemporary style. I draw ideas from the many layers of knowledge such as cultural, political, institutional, environmental, and psychological.

Erin Fussell is an intermedia performance artist interested in ineffable connections and relationships between people, animals and places. She draws on dance, music, film and science experimentation to bring the non-verbal, experiential undertow into the seen and heard. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she’s working on her MFA in Art & Ecology.

Jim Hunyadi is a graduate student in Media Arts at Highlands University, and a retired journalist. He spent the last 25 years at Dow Jones LMG as a senior editor and senior systems analyst, where he was lead analyst on the largest project in the company’s history – the selection and rollout of a company-wide content management system. As senior editor he played key roles in the development and launch of new print and digital products, such as the award-winning Ulster Magazine.

Tania Larsson is of Gwich’in and Swedish descent and she was born and raised in France. At the age of fifteen, she moved to Canada with her family with the goal of reconnecting to her culture and her land. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in digital arts and jewelry at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Tania is a founding member of Dene Nahjo, a non-profit organization that focuses on cultural revitalization projects. She constantly seeks out opportunities to learn traditional practices such as tanning hides on the land, making tools and sewing. Combining her traditional skills and contemporary arts education, she strives to create pieces that are inspired by her culture and delivered using digital technologies.

Phat Le’s work expresses his interest in using math and language to communicate the relationship between different cultures through materials. He is currently a BFA Studio Art major at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Le’s studio practices include sculpture, drawing, painting, film and installation. His artwork has been exhibited in “The Young Curator” at Site Santa Fe, “Currents” the Santa Fe international New Media Festival, “Stubborn Matter” at Wade Wilson Gallery, Outdoor Vision Fest at Santa Fe University of art and Design, AHA Festival, Raw Earth exhibition at Red Dot Gallery, “Range” exhibition at Chile.

Born in Seattle, Washington, of half-Japanese and half-Caucasian heritage, emerging artist Nagisa Leonard uses precious metals, gemstones, and enamels to create unique pieces of art jewelry. Incorporating the spirit of many different influences, she balances the clean elegance of wearable jewelry with the Japanese concept of wabi sabi (rustic beauty) into her work. Working with contemporary creative ideas and carefully executed craftsmanship, Nagisa strives to produce one-of-a-kind pieces of unusual and beautiful art jewelry.

Amanda D. Romero grew up in Santa Fe where she enjoyed exploring the vast landscapes and culture of New Mexico. She has always had a fascination with sound and the way it enhances an environment in both literal and metaphysical terms. Amanda’s work investigates the continually evolving relationship between humans and various environments and the way in which technology can serve as a mechanism of communication throughout these interactions. Amanda uses her background in music, video, and photography in such a way that permits her to explore these relationships. As well as interpersonal parallels, Amanda is interested in social practice and the way that art and sound can be used as healing mechanisms in both natural and self-generated environments. She has done extensive studies and practices in various art modalities and how they can be implemented as mechanisms for change and healing in individuals with varying forms of trauma and disabilities. Her passion for social practice and her affinity towards the recurrently progressing connection between humans, technology, and environments has shaped her work and created a commentary on the spectrums of these interactions. Amanda is currently in her senior year at the University of New Mexico where she is pursuing a BFA in Art Studio with an emphasis in Electronic Arts as well as a Minor in Arts Management. She will begin work on her Honors Thesis this Spring.

Chase Matthew Stafford is currently a Senior at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. He is interested in using drawing as a device to navigate space, and transforming the perception of the viewer. Recently Chase has shown his work in Trace Matter at Wade Wilson Art and at Fresh Santa Fe. His video work has been included in Currents 2015 at the Santa Fe Railyard as well as the annual Outdoor Vision Fest 2015, held at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Biographical information about the scholars:
Miranda Blas has always been creative and artistic. Her earliest memories involve messy paints, brushes, crumbly chalk, and the intense want to make things. As she has grown older and into her intelligence, she come to know art as a dynamic way of life. Her experience at St. John’s College these past four years has deepened her appreciation for a creativity and her personal relationship to art. She is grateful for the recognition of this from the St. John’s community and SITE Santa Fe.

Brian Clinton came to Santa Fe from Northern California in 2012 to attend the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Arriving at school as a painter he quickly moved into sculpture employing a variety of media, most recently including video and audio components. Exploring each medium thoroughly in his work, Brian aims to apply them uniquely and successfully to convey his concepts. His work is greatly identity based, linked to personal experience and executed to connect to a broader spectrum of concepts and relate to the greater viewing public.

Melissa Dulanto

Andrea Gallegos was born and raised in Las Vegas, NM. She grew up working on a ranch, which is where she gained the appreciation of working and building projects with her hands, using mostly wood.  She worked as a Production Manager and AD Operations Manager at an online advertising company for 4 years in Colorado Springs, CO. After the company downsized due to the economy collapse, she moved back to Las Vegas to finish her degree at NMHU. Andrea graduated with a BFA and is currently working on her masters degree in the MAC program at NMHU.

Jesse Garcia was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is where he currently resides. He did not have any formal training in the arts prior to attending CNM Community College (2010), and now attends Santa Fe University of Art and Design (2013-2015), perusing a BFA in Studio arts (final year).  His work consists of narrative paintings encompassing personal a deep personal narrative exploring his own existence both here on planet earth in the physical and within his own mind. His work in progress associates with what he believes to be existence in four parts memory, being, waiting, and light. He often recreates scenes, incorporates symbology of his own design to examine not only the creation of his own narrative but to understand (or try to) how it can play a role on how the story unfolds.

Erik Gellert is an artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His aptitude for the arts first emerged out of the medium of clay leading him to pursue the study of drawing and painting. He applied these skills working as a preservationist, working with historians to recreate wall textures and color schemes in many notable homes including the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. He moved from Chicago to Santa Fe in 2011 to pursue advanced studies in ceramics at Santa Fe Community College.

Lara Goldmann moved to New Mexico in 2013 from Berlin, Germany with a Stipe from the DAAD. Interested in the multi-disciplinary approach towards the arts here, she decided to continue her studies and pursue a MFA within the Arts & Ecology department at UNM. In her work she tries to re-interpret the differences and layers of individual perception, mainly in installations, using rhythm and repetition, fragmentation and quotations, single elements of various media to create a space that reaffirms and negates itself; an open end, a line of thought that moves in circles.

Emma Goos in her final year of studies at St. John’s College, is an emerging artist. She grew up in the town of Aurora, CO, where life is often more a question of surviving than of thriving. Encouraged to put academics first throughout high school in order to escape said living conditions, a natural aptitude for the visual fell to the back burner. It was not until pursuing higher education at St. John’s College that she was able to stoke the creative fire within her and, for once, allow that unrestful inner voice to express itself. Tentative at the idea of throwing oneself into pure expression, she has fiddled with different mediums, including charcoal drawings, fiber arts, and music composition. One medium which has risen above the others is photography. Just this past summer, she picked up a camera and began looking at the world through a tool which allowed her to simultaneously distance herself from the world whilst actively arranging what a viewer will see of it.  She is now using the lens to explore anonymity. By portraying emptiness and silence, photography has enabled her to understand not only how she sees the world, but also how the world sees her.

Abbey Hepner is a conceptual artist investigating the human relationship with the landscape and technology. Using the mediums of photography, video, public art intervention, web interaction and electronic processes, she considers issues related to population growth, man-made disasters, and the complex and often contradictory roles surrounding technological progress. She addresses the psychological motivations existing in the gray area between political extremes and the complexity of hyperobjects. Hepner holds bachelors degrees in Art and Cognitive Psychology from the University of Utah. Her work on the topic of nuclear energy made her the recent recipient of a Puffin Foundation grant. She is an international exhibiting artist, recently finishing a body of work in Japan and participating in a residency and solo exhibition in Berlin, Germany. She is currently an MFA student in photography at the University of New Mexico.

Ian Kerstetter is an artist of Oneida and European-American heritage. He is currently completing his BFA in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico with a minor in Sustainability Studies. As a queer indigenous artist, Ian is passionately interested in the intersections of identity, food, community, healing, and storytelling. Ian is trained in a variety of traditional and digital media, and often works in interdisciplinary, collaborative contexts. His most recent work includes a mural in downtown Albuquerque created with young artists to celebrate growth and collaboration as central to healthy communities, and creating a food + identity workshop as part of his undergraduate thesis work. Ian is a founding member of Vecinos Artist Collective, a group of New Mexican artists who work to strengthen the endeavors of local organizations and communities through powerful artistic collaboration.

Betsy Leonard was born on April 5, 1991 in Montpellier, France. Her interests lie in the three-dimensional. The materials that she uses for her sculptures and instillations vary as the idea generally manifests itself before the construction. Although she doesn’t favor any material over another she spent seven years building ponds. The familiarity with stone can be seen in her work. Leonard also has a fascination with light and shadow. The content of her work is directly affiliated with her past and present being. Because she traveled extensively as a child one can see ideas of displacement, longing, fear, and uncertainty as well as beauty. Her work also touches on sexuality as she has a fascination with multiple phallic forms. She equates these with death as well as they are also reminiscent of maggots. Leonard attended Maryland institute College of Art and design for a year and a half before transferring to Santa Fe University of Art and Design. She is inspired by many artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, Tara Donovan, Bruce Nauman, and Sandy Skoglund.

Monty Little is studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts with a double major in Creative Writing and Studio Arts. His current work reflects on his experience of war and duration as a rifleman. Little’s paintings and prints are his understanding and observations of his service during and after war. His multi-application of acrylic and oil, sand, joint-compound, and charcoal are the marginalia to his obscured memories.  Little uses each medium as erasure, where unsettling truths reveal personal components and texture is integral, yet disruptive to find his past chaotic.

Jasper Mockingbird

Siera Reisler relocated to Santa Fe from Northampton, Massachusetts in 2013. She is a multimedia artist currently in her last year of undergraduate studies at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Persistently exploring the thematic capacities of accumulation and endurance, her work is about the process of working. Often performance-based, her art objects reveal themselves through obsessive curiosity and extended duration. As of late, she is concerned with impulsiveness, inefficiency, and sparse functionality. She is especially interested in information and objects that are only useful in acutely specific situations, or those which were realized in an equally urgent and tedious way.

Franco Andres makes work located at the intersection of the naturally occurring and the manufactured while drawing from his own experience as source material. Andres grew up in Miami, FL and after a stint as a pre-medical student at the University of Miami moved to NYC where he studied at SVA and embarked on a career working with interiors. A move from San Francisco to Santa Fe prompted a shift in sensibility contributing to his current work’s decidedly post-minimalist, gestural aesthetic.

Elizabeth Starks‘ background is in Studio Art: Drawing and Painting, and she has spent the last ten years designing for both print and web for such employers and clients as the San Diego Natural History Museum, La Jolla Historical Society, School for Advanced Research IARC, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Haak’u Museum, and others. Her interest in exhibit design and cultural preservation led her to the Institute of American Indian Arts where she completed the Museum Studies Certificate, and she is currently in her last year of the Software-driven Systems Design Master’s program at NMHU, developing digital and physical interactive applications for cultural institutions. In her own art, she is interested in combining traditional art making techniques with accessible electronics and exploring how, “smart,” devices influence how we learn about our own cultures and express ourselves.

William Thoms was born in southwest Washington State in 1974 and raised in a failed timber community on the edge of the Chehalis Indian Reservation. Since receiving his B.S. in Motion Picture Studies from Emerson College, Thoms has parlayed his education and film experience into a broader study of the visual arts. Inspired by the special effects industry and applied sciences, his work pairs industrial and commercial arts mediums with an exploration of the traditional Coast Salish native motifs of his homeland. Thoms has exhibited in a handful of minor galleries on the west coast, spurring the emerging artist to invest in more formal art studies. He currently attends the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico concentrating in sculpture and fabrication.

Mira Woodson work embraces design through multiple lenses: textile + graphic design and photography + architecture all inform and reform her relationship with the built and imagined environment. She attempts to explore sensory experiences, narrative, identity, adjacency, and memory through storytelling. One of her interests is the storytelling role of textiles in historical narratives, and their continuing relevance in pop culture and couture today. Fibers chronicle emotional landscapes cultivated throughout the seasons. Whether in Peruvian embroidery, Japanese indigo, the soothing memory of a childhood blankie, or a runway show by Yohji Yamamoto are territories where personal and cultural stories are being told.

Please watch this video about our 2013/14 SITE Scholars:

Biographical information about the scholars:
Lea Marta Andersson moved to New Mexico in 2003 from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico in 2008 and is currently an MFA candidate working within the disciplines of Art & Ecology and Painting & Drawing at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Andersson has traveled widely, bringing notions of place, both geographical and cosmological, to her minimalist paintings.

Seiya Bowen is a Japanese-American student at the University of New Mexico, pursuing a degree in Studio Arts, Photography. Coming from a multi-racial background, Bowen is mainly interested in the theme of identity. His work questions our inability to relate as human beings and the barriers within ourselves that keep us separate.

Destini Duran is a fashion design student at the Santa Fe Community College and has been designing for about a year now. Destini loves fashion and creating beautiful garments for women of all shapes and sizes. She strives to make the woman wearing her clothes feel beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, but also a little edgy and sexy. In 2013 she was chosen to show for Santa Fe fashion week as an emerging designer. Destini’s line is called Destinista Fashions.

Julia Edmonds is from the Kiowa and Caddo tribes of Oklahoma. She grew up in Southern California and has been attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the last 4 years. She is a senior majoring in Studio Arts, with a focus in painting. Her work leans towards Abstract Expressionism. She was inducted into the Alpha Chi National Honor Society on October 22, 2013.

David Estrada is an independent filmmaker and photographer, currently based in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He received a BFA in Film Production from the University of Central Florida and later served as a cinematography lecturer to UCF undergraduates. David worked as an editor and camera/photo assistant at Deeb Studios in Orlando, Florida, and as a freelancer and production assistant for various directors in New York City. He spent two seasons living in Denali National Park, Alaska, where he served as a photographer, cinematographer, and video editor for Aramark Sports, LLC, editing documentary-style videos for clients. David won the Best Cinematography Award at The Freak Show Film Festival in 2009 for the short film, “The Sleuth Incident”. He won third place in the Cannes Young Lions competition in 2008 for his original commercial, “Our America,” and his short film, “Tears in the Rain,” won the Bronze REMI award at the Houston Worldfest. He has spent three years documenting the economies and lives of coffee farmers in Latin America. David has led photography workshops with National Geographic Student Expeditions programs in Alaska, Iceland, Greece, Italy, Ecuador and the Grand Canyon. He is interested in how photography is changing with emerging technology, and he wants to experiment with interactive media while he pursues his MA in Media Arts at New Mexico Highlands University.

Since childhood, Sango Imai-Hall wanted to be a cartoonist. After high school he attended the Center for Cartoon Studies, a new college dedicated to comics. After graduation, Sango enrolled at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where he hoped to improve his skills as a visual artist and creative writer. At SFUAD he became preoccupied with the questions every artist must face: Who am I? What inspires me? What is my message? He began exploring these questions in his work while also experimenting with different mediums and aesthetics. He has used his studies in art history and contemporary culture to understand his role in the artistic canon. Today, he sees a general discord between the arts and entertainment and wishes to rectify their differences in his work, utilizing both pop and academic culture to create meaningful yet accessible stories and artworks. Sango’s work can be viewed at: sangoart.nfshost.com.

Shelbie Loomis grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and currently attends Santa Fe University of Art and Design on a full scholarship. Shelbie uses monochromatic colors and themes to create large-scale charcoal drawings and sculptures that express controlled environments of life and death. She also utilizes materials such as graphite, ink, charcoal, light bulbs, copper, water, bug life, and plants. Shelbie is currently a senior and plans to attend graduate school in the fall of 2014 to further explore studio arts and social practice.

Diana Padilla is originally from Mexico City. She is now in her last year of college in the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, with a major in Studio Art. She loves painting, but her main interest is in museum and curatorial studies. Diana was an intern in the Education Department at SITE Santa Fe in 2012, and she is currently working as an intern at ARTsmart.

A.J Peters was born and raised on Bainbridge Island, a thirty-minute ferry ride from Seattle, WA. He began to dabble in digital photography in high school, and in little time, pulled his mom’s Minolta out from the dusty shoebox it lived in and constructed a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom. At first he loved the ability to chronicle what was happening around him, but he slowly started to realize that his photos were actually more personal than that and shared an inward vision. After high school, A.J. spent seven months traveling in South America and felt at home with just a camera in his hand. He’s since continued to shoot, using mostly digital photography. A.J. Peters currently attends St. John’s College. His photos can be seen at http://cargocollective.com/torpedofish.

Elizabeth Shores is currently working on several projects under the umbrella of a faux institute called ‘My Presence is Productive, Inc.’, exploring different aspects of production, agency, and power through a series of projects ranging from performances and video archives to educational pamphlets, guided tours, drawings and paintings. Shores is seeking not only to understand the societal frameworks that define her by what she makes as an artist and as an individual, but also the ways in which these structures illuminate foundational concepts of society. Having received her BFA in Intermedia from The University of Iowa, she is currently pursuing an MFA at The University of New Mexico and has exhibited in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally.

Laura Walkingstick is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians on the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee, NC. In 2005 she completed an AFA in Studio Arts at Institute of American Indian Arts and is now completing her BFA in studio arts, with her concentrations in ceramics and jewelry. At the age of 10 she learned how to sew pieces of scrap materials to make doll clothes. In 2006 while working an internship for the Museum of the Cherokee Indians she decided to create her own unique cloth dolls, fashioned in 18th century style clothing. Her inspirations come from Cherokee doll makers, Richard and Berdina Crowe, who made wooden dolls. Her work reflects various Cherokee traditions with unique contemporary ideas. While dolls are her main interest, she continues to explore historical ceramic works from a variety of cultures to incorporate new ideas and designs into her doll making.

Nominators:

Lauren Addario, AmeriCorps Cultural Technology Coordinator at New Mexico Highlands University

Scott Marshall Anderson, Painting and Drawing Professor, University of New Mexico

Ezra Estes, Program Head, Fashion Design, Santa Fe Community College

Mark Herndon, Studio Arts Chair, Institute of American Indian Arts

Adrienne Salinger, Photography Professor, University of New Mexico

Linda Swanson, Chair of the Art Department, Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Charlene Teters, Chair of the Art Department, Institute of American Indian Arts

Diane Tintor, Associate Professor of Art History and Jewelry and Metal Arts, Santa Fe Community College

Mary Tsiongas, Associate Chair & Graduate Director, Associate Professor Electronic Arts, Art & Art History, University of New Mexico

Edward Walpin, Assistant Dean, St. Johns University

Please watch this video about our 2012/13 SITE Scholars:

Biographical information about the scholars:
Brandee Caoba is mixed media artist, blurring the line between painting and photography. Her work alternates between analog and digital, and explores the relationships of how we relate to the narratives of myth and mythologies as individuals and as a society. She is the former apprentice of feminist artist and activist May Stevens, and most recently interned with Bostick and Sullivan furthering her exploration of hand crafted photography and alternative processes. She is in her final year at The Institute of American Indian Arts.

India Cochrane is from Baltimore, Maryland and is currently a sophomore at St John’s College. She has been drawing her whole life, but she picked up art more seriously in high school where she built a portfolio of mostly charcoal drawings, oil paintings and a few pieces in fashion design. She rediscovered her love for visual art and took many painting and drawing classes in 9^th and 10^th grade, then in 11^th grade she learned to design and create clothing. She decided upon a different route for college and chose St John’s where she passionately studies the Classics of the Western world through the Great Books Program. Art is not offered at St John’s; because of this she has once again rediscovered her love for making visual art and her need for a creative outlet.

Nina Dubois is an artist whose work and research focuses on the ways in which the built environment is informed by and reflects our understanding of natural systems. Through sculptural and architectural installations, she explores the pragmatic, phenomenological, and symbolic aspects of those relationships. After receiving a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, she participated in the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico, where she is currently finishing her MFA with a focus in Art & Ecology. Current projects include collaboration with Jeanette Hart-Mann and Chrissie Orr on the SeedBroadcast Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station, and SOUND COLONY, an outdoor sculptural/sound installation sited at the Alvarado Urban Farm in conjunction with ISEA 2012 Machine Wilderness.

Katherine Goldman started off as an art student, then changed course and spent a number of years traveling and working as a chef.  She has recently become involved in making art again.  She is currently attending Santa Fe Community College in preparation to complete her bachelor’s degree in linguistics and art at the University of New Mexico.

Hannah Hoel’s current work emphasizes repeated action, employing fiber arts within a formal setting while exploring the relationship between the handmade and the geometric.  She is pursuing her second bachelor’s degree at Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Studio Art after previously earning a BA in Visual Culture from Goldsmiths College, London, and an MA in Eastern Classics from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.

A product of the Peace Corps, KB Jones was raised in the US and Africa. She received her BA from Columbia University in 2002 and lived and worked in the New York art world before moving to New Mexico for her graduate studies.  A second year MFA candidate at UNM, she is primarily a painter. Her work is about the figure, culture, and the practice of painting: her connection to everyone.

Lucy Madeleine is a multidisciplinary artist working in performance, sculpture and installation. She is interested in the relationship between language and the body and makes work that explores this dynamic through visual metaphor. Recently relocated to Santa Fe from Los Angeles, CA, she is completing her BFA in Studio Arts at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

KaiLani Mayer holds on to things. Her installations are carefully constructed spaces that incorporate both personal belongings as well as found objects. Focusing on preservation and the human impulse to keep things, she is interested in how we collect pieces of evidence of our past in order to have a way of understanding ourselves. She pushes her honesty, authenticity and vulnerability in order to establish an intimate experience with the viewer. Playing with both revealing and hiding, she strives to connect with the viewer while also maintaining a distance or sense of longing. Currently, she is working on her honor’s thesis work for her BFA at the University of New Mexico.

Jessica Minnich moved from Portland, Oregon to Santa Fe where she is a junior at SFUAD. She is interested in ideas of morbidity and the uncanny and explores notions of gender identity through her performance.

Conor Peterson is in his final year of studies as a graduate student of Electronic Art at the University of New Mexico, where he moved after studying at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Though primarily raised by roving packs of coffee and semi intelligent tree moss, Conor has taken a liking to the relics of nuclear science that litter the desert of New Mexico. Inspired by the historical complexity of the area, Conor has been transmuting the concerns of new media into novel technological works by applying his background in computer science and engineering. He recently helped to organize the Underground Symposium of Electronic Art, a metashow coincident with ISEA 2012 that emphasized local experimental art.

Alycia Smith was born in Oregon. She completed her BA in Philosophy at University of Oregon and is currently working toward an MA in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College. Her primary focus in art is poetry and photography. She is interested in the notion of transience in art, and artwork as interactive and evolving activity.

Miles Tokunow is a multimedia storyteller. He is both an artist and educator. Currently a Masters Candidate at Highlands University in Las Vegas, NM, Miles is interested in creating interactive performance spaces combining dance, film and sound. Miles has worked at and with non-profits in Santa Fe teaching elementary, high school and college students how to tell their own stories through different forms of media. He is currently in the process of making collaborative art that focuses on social change through multimedia performance.

Trang Minh Vu was born in Saigon, Vietnam. One of 11 siblings and the youngest of 7 girls, she immigrated to United States after the Vietnam War. Trang earned her MFA in 1995 from UC Irvine in Video Installation with an emphasis on Marginalized Identity. She currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is pursuing a degree in photography at the Santa Fe Community College. Her approach to exploring gender and the body utilizes a personal photographic narrative: a silent dialog with the camera.  The subject is the viewer’s perception of sexuality, emotion, cultural and social restraints.  The visual language includes abstract elements, ordinary objects, fetish images and the human form.  Nuance, innuendo, and symbolic constructions are all present and important.

Crystal Demientieff Worl is Raven moiety, Sockeye Clan, from the Raven House from the Chilkat region in Southeast Alaska. From her mother’s side, she is Deg Hit’an Athabascan from Fairbanks Alaska. She was introduced at a young age to her traditional arts, practices, and story telling. Today she is a senior in both Studio Arts and Moving Images at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Crystal works in jewelry metals, glass, and painting. The forms Crystal focuses on are based on traditional Tlingit form line (aka Northwest Coast Design.) Today at IAIA Crystal utilizes her education to apply new techniques and ways of presenting that have not been done before to traditional designs and stories. It is her responsibility to carry on her ancestral knowledge of creation and life through contemporary story and art and pass it down to the next generations.

Nominators:

Lauren Addario, AmeriCorps Cultural Technology Coordinator at New Mexico Highlands University

Michael Hoffer, Design Chair, School of Arts + Design Program Head, Sculpture, Ceramics Assistant Professor, Fine Woodworking Santa Fe Community College

Scott Marshall Anderson, Painting and Drawing Professor, University of New Mexico

André Ruesch, Chair of Arts, Professor of Photography, School of Arts + Design at Santa Fe Community College

Adrienne Salinger, Photography Professor, University of New Mexico

Linda Swanson, Chair of the Art Department, Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Charlene Teters, Chair of the Art Department, Institute of American Indian Arts

Mary Tsiongas, Associate Chair & Graduate Director, Associate Professor Electronic Arts, Art & Art History, University of New Mexico

Edward Walpin, Assistant Dean, St. Johns University