I earned my MFA in Painting at Tyler School of Art, where I spent my first year of graduate studies in Rome, Italy. I also hold a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I majored in Drawing and Painting and minored in Art History. While attending SAIC, I participated in study abroad programs in Mexico and in Prague, Czech Republic. I also have a strong international history of exhibitions.
It is my role as a teacher to aid students in transforming their ideas into art that is both conceptually and aesthetically compelling. Each student brings a unique perspective and personal narrative to the classroom along with different subject matter or techniques of expression they wish to address in their art. It is my job to facilitate a learning environment where an open discourse feeds the creative process so that the students gain a greater understanding of visual communication.
I believe that it is advantageous to expose students to a wide variety of media and techniques. Each technique and material has its own merits, and therefore a concept should be expressed through the medium that best suits it. For example, it is more effective to express a detailed, narrative-driven idea that relies on movement through video, performance, writing, or a series of images than through a single image in a static medium. Even in the more traditional areas of painting and drawing, there is a huge variety of materials and techniques available. One cannot use watercolor to create thick impasto, and it would be frustrating to attempt delicate, clean, tiny line drawings with chalk pastels, and counterintuitive to knit a novel. Thus, the more tools students are exposed to, the more likely they will find some method of expression that is ideal for their temperament and concept.
In addition, it is beneficial to expose students to the work of artists spanning the canon of art history. In this way, they can derive guidance and inspiration from successful artworks that utilize materials and techniques they are learning or address subject matter that they find interesting. I am familiar with a wide range of art-historical movements, including first-hand study of ancient Roman and Aztec sites; Mexican murals; Gothic architecture in Prague, Kutna Hora, Vienna, Paris, and London; Art Nouvaeu architecture and art in Prague and Vienna; Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art and architecture in Rome, Sienna, Florence, and Vienna; and other experiences. I attended the 2009 Venice Biennale, have visited studios of successful artists in Rome, New York, and Chicago, and make regular trips to galleries and museums to keep up with the latest trends in contemporary art. In addition, I have studied historical Asian, Southeast Asian, and Indian art forms and the history of film animation. Since I have wide variety of knowledge of art history I am capable of serving as a reference, further enriching the classroom experience.
As a teacher, it is my goal to create an optimal learning environment by fostering community, facilitating engaging critiques, instructing students in a variety of media, and challenging their ideas about what their art could be by exposing them to art-historical references.
back to top