CURRENT Instructors
Margaret Alvarez is a working artist from Houston, Texas. She has been teaching art in private schools for the past 14 years. In 2019 she started sharing videos and teaching online art journaling workshops. She founded My Artsy Coach, helping people use creativity as an outlet during the pandemic and beyond. Margaret's focus now is teaching people how to connect creativity, art journaling, and gratitude by developing workshops that teach people how to start "Gratitude Art Journaling".
Nohelia Vargas Bolivar is a Venezuelan artist based in Houston. Her work combines painting, sculpture, and animation. She earned her BFA from the University of Houston with an Area of concentration in Painting and Art History, and a MFA from Tufts University. Vargas currently works as a docent at the Blaffer Art Museum and as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Clear Lake and Art League Houston.
Peter Broz has over 6 years of teaching experience, including HISD, Art League Houston and with The Woods Project. He is currently a member of Box13 ArtSpace, an artist-run space in the East End. Peter is also represented by Catapult Gallery in Richmond, Texas. His most recent work is focused on the sensory aspect of experiencing nature, as well as the primal and instinctual aspects of human nature. Figurative elements, as well as natural and biological references, are utilized to suggest a narrative between humans and nature.
Born and raised in Houston, TX, Angel Castelán is an interdisciplinary artist who works in painting, drawing, printmaking, and assemblages. Castelán earned both his BFA, with a minor in Art History, and his MFA from the University of Houston. Following graduation Castelán became an educator at Art League Houston, Houston Community College, and Lone Star College. Castelán has shown his work throughout Houston including the Holocaust Museum, The Blaffer Art Museum, Hooks-Epstein Gallery, and Zoya Tommy Gallery. He currently has a studio at BOX 13 Artspace and is represented by Hooks-Epstein gallery.
Chelsea Clarke completed her MFA at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where she investigated the intersection of print and fiber. Her work centers around themes of perceived contradiction, seeking comfort, and living in a state of recovery. She received her undergraduate degree in Painting & Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she also finished a post-Baccalaureate in Nonprofit Management with the goal of one day founding a radically accessible artist residency. She lives and works in her hometown of Houston, Texas as an artist in residence at the Lawndale Art Center.
Lucinda Cobley, primarily works in paint and printmaking. Originally from the UK, she has lived in Houston for 20 years. Qualifications are Post Graduate Diploma in Illustration from the University of Arts in London, a BA (Hons) in Three Dimensional Glass Design from Staffordshire University and is a qualified as a teacher from The Institute of Education at the University of Central London. She has exhibited her work in the USA and internationally.
www.lucindacobley.com
Leslie Cuenca is an artist, yoga, and dance teacher born in Havana, Cuba, and living in the USA. She studied art history and painting at the University of St. Thomas and Glassell School of Art in Houston, Texas. She graduated with a Liberal Arts degree and studied art, architecture, and theology in Italy in 2003. After visiting Japan and taking courses in ink painting in 2017, she turned to ink as her primary medium. Leslie also studied yoga in Houston and northern India receiving her teacher certification in 2013. She currently teaches in private studios throughout Houston, Sugar Land, and other institutions such as HCU and YMCA. She is also a professional working artist currently showing at Cothren Contemporary, Concafe and instructor exhibits at the Art League of Houston.
Leslie Cuenca is also a professional dancer. She competed and performed throughout her high school years and formed part of the University of Houston Dance Theatre from 1999-2000. She currently specializes in Latin dances and belly dance.
Austin Cullen is a Houston-based photographer and printmaker. He received his BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2019, and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2022. As a graduate student at UNL, Austin worked as a gallery assistant in the Eisentrager Howard Gallery, and as a Graduate Instructor of Record. He currently works as a Showroom Coordinator at Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing. His current project explores how museum displays and the natural world influence and affect one another. This project stems from his long-standing interest in natural history museums and the history of display. He has always been fascinated by the extravagant ways museums frame the American landscape. In his practice, Austin welcomes and encourages collaborative making and discussion. In the project, A Natural History (Built to be Seen), he has worked closely with several significant natural history museums, researchers, and exhibit fabrication companies such as the Field Museum, The Houston Museum of Natural Science, Morril Hall: University of Nebraska State Museum, PBE Design Group, Kansas University Natural History Museum, and the Hastings Museum.
John Davis was born in the Boston area in 1970. He received a BFA from UMass Amherst and a Masters in painting at the University of New Orleans. His work points to contemporary disconnect and codes in language informed by a derailed ideal of American progress.
Davis has exhibited his paintings in Denmark, Italy, Austria, New Orleans and New York. His work was purchased by the director of the New Orleans Museum of Art and collected by the San Antonio Museum of Art. Davis has contributed as a visiting artist to the graduate program at Yale and was interviewed on NPR. John Davis lives and works in Houston, TX.
Tess Doyle works primarily in printmaking, drawing and mixed media. Inspired by pop culture, personal idols, victims and everyday encounters, she creates an array of figurative and symbol heavy imagery. Her drawings and prints often contain bizarre narratives and pastiche. Tess is an artist consultant at Kinder HSPVA, instructing printmaking and drawing. She earned her BFA in printmaking from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Along with her active fine art & design practice, Tess belongs to Burning Bones Press, a community print shop in Houston, where she acts as Press Assistant, as well as leading workshops / events within the arts community. Her work has been shown throughout the Texas region and United States. She is an active member of PrintMatters Houston. You can find her getting inky as a Speedball Demo. Artist, enlightening the masses to the art of printmaking!
WEBSITE: www.tessprints.com
Instagram: @tessssied
Marley Foster (she/her) is a sculptor and educator from Houston, Texas.
Foster creates work around themes and questions of home, femininity, whiteness, and social change, through the lens of domestic objects and their material histories. Alternating between labor intensive sewing practices and intuitive processes like collage and photography, Foster turns the visual language of southern domesticity against itself. With humor and self-awareness, she uses these acts of re-making as an entry point to ideating and building a generative, sustainable, communal future in Houston.
Foster earned BAs in Studio Art and English from Rice University, and recently earned her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston. In addition to her studio practice, Foster works as a writer, instructor, and program coordinator with various Houston art institutions.
Erika Whitney G. was born in East Texas and is currently based in Houston. She received her MFA in Painting from the University of Texas at Tyler. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions in Houston at the Front Gallery and BS Projects, along with recent group exhibitions at Dodomu Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Barbara Davis Gallery, The Big Show at Lawndale Art Center, and New Texas Talent at Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX. She will participate in the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation of Art Summer Sessions Residency in 2022. Whitney currently teaches at Sam Houston State University, Art League Houston, Houston Community College, and San Jacinto College.
Caroline Graham, a signature member of the Watercolor Artists Society, began studying art at the Witte Museum and McNay Art Institute in San Antonio. Continuing in the arts, she received her MA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her love of figures and portraits eventually led to study in the Anatomy Lab at the Baylor College of Medicine. An award winning watercolorist and studio artist, her work is included in numerous exhibitions and collections. Her commissions are seen all over Houston, and collected throughout the country. She has been teaching at Art League Houston for over 15 years.
Juliette Hemingway is a multidisciplinary artist, sculptor, designer, and writer. She has worked as a Creative Director for 20+ years and has had her work exhibited in group and solo shows throughout the U.S. She was recently exhibited at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri 2021-2022. Her work is part of collections at the Denver Health Outpatient Medical Center and hospitals in Austin, Texas. She will be part of the "Testimony Traveling Exhibition, Mid-America Arts Alliance" from 2023-2024.
Guadalupe Hernandez (b.1993) is a Houston-based multidisciplinary artist who earned his MFA from Houston Baptist University in 2021. Hernandez was born in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, before relocating to Pleasanton, Texas, a small city south of San Antonio, in 1998. Despite moving to the United States, Hernandez maintained a deep connection to his Mexican heritage and customs through time-honored familial traditions. Hernandez’s practice examines his cultural identity by reinterpreting childhood memories and family stories connecting his past and offering greater meaning to his present. Through the use of photographic references accumulated over several years, retracing the markets, street scenes, and people of his homeland Hernandez creates elaborate Papel Picado portraits and figurative oil paintings with gestural brushwork.
Loc Huynh (b. 1992, Austin, TX) graduated with an MFA from the University of North Texas in 2020. Huynh has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of the Southwest (Midland, TX), Martha’s Contemporary (Austin TX), and New Release Gallery (New York) among others. Select group exhibitions include presentations at the Orlando Museum of Art, Zona Maco (Mexico City) with Rusha & Co. (Los Angeles), Stiltsville (Miami) with Half Gallery (New York), Hashimoto Contemporary (Los Angeles), Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Art Central Fair (Hong Kong) with Lorin Gallery (Los Angeles). Huynh has participated in the Vermont Studio Center Residency (Johnson, VT) and was part of the Lawndale Artist Studio Program (Houston). He lives and works in Houston, TX
Nyssa Juneau is a painter who lives and works in Houston, TX. Juneau studied painting at Louisiana State University, drawing installations with Phyllis Bramson at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, and Interactive programming at Rice University, later using that knowledge to create an interactive geometrical program for her solo exhibition, “Three Sides to Every Story.” In 2015 she was a Rice University Authors, Editors, Composers, and Artists Honoree. In 2018, Juneau exhibited paintings in the exhibition Mythologies Louisianaises at Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans. The exhibition catalog is in the collections of Rice University, Louisiana State University, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. In 2020 and 2022, Juneau and artist Eepi Chaad were awarded a Let Creativity Happen! grant from the Houston Arts Alliance for the continuation of the project Vote In TX. Vote in TX, a collaborative effort with artist Eepi Chaad, is a social media project featuring original drawings from multiple artists and a website providing quick links to voting resources for Texans. In early 2023, she created The Send Nudes Project in partnership with Art League Houston with the goal of engaging with the figurative tradition for a 21st century public while re-framing the nude figure under the lens of body positivity. Most recently she worked in stone lithography for the first time as an artist in residence at The Printing Museum in Houston, TX.
Molly Koehn is an artist and designer who utilizes textile practices to explore the built environment and idealizations of nature. She received an MFA with an emphasis in fibers from Arizona State University, and her work continues to carry on the delicate, expressive qualities of her BFA in drawing from Fort Hays State University. In addition to keeping a studio practice, Molly also teaches workshops and classes regularly.
Amie Krebbs is a full-time artist and musician, spending her days binding handmade journals from recycled materials, and her evenings singing in a rock 'n' roll band. She has always had a love for journaling, keeping a diary since before she could write by dictating diary entries to an older child. She came out of the womb singing.
Naomi Kuo is a mixed media and social practice artist based in Houston, TX. Her work often integrates drawings, textiles, zines, oral histories, and direct exchanges of resources in efforts to help diverse communities strengthen connections of care with the environment and with each other. Subjects of interest include urban ecology, Asian American experiences, and solidarity economies. Kuo received an MFA in Studio Art / Social Practice at City University of NY, Queens College. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Asia Society Texas Center, Houston City Hall, Queens Museum of Art (NY), and more. She is a 2023 recipient of The Idea Fund grant. She has also worked as an arts administrator, muralist and community arts facilitator.
Laura Lawson has been painting since she was 5. Life got in the way, but then a few years ago she slowly began to learn oil painting. It has grown into a passion and continuous journey of learning and growing. She has studied with master artists including Matt Smith, Ron Rencher, Carolyn Anderson, Derek Penix and Dawn Whitelaw. She also has participated in many workshops and attended art conventions throughout the US including Washington DC, California, Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia. One of the greatest influences on her art career was her first painting teacher, Angie Banta Brown of New Braunfels, TX. Laura’s art has sold in galleries, through commission work, and even collected internationally.
Maureen Lax is an interdisciplinary artist based out of Houston, TX who works primarily in painting and installation art. Originally from Minnesota, she moved to Houston in 2014 and earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston. She has also completed arts coursework at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Studio-X Amman. Her work has been exhibited at local venues such as Project Row Houses, Lawndale Art Center, and MATCH.
Polly Liu received a BA and BFA from the Dominican College, Houston, an MFA from the Dominican Fine Art Institute in Florence, Italy, and also completed graduate studies at UH, University of St. Thomas, and in Florence, Italy. She works as an art consultant, art director and calligrapher. She has received numerous exhibitions honors, and her work is in private collections in Europe and Canada. Ms. Liu is an accomplished teacher whose range encompasses Classical Methods, Watercolor, Chinese Painting techniques, and calligraphy. She extensively works in portraiture, figurative and landscape painting, which she considers specialty areas.
Noah Leen is an artist and educator based in Houston, TX. He explores the disciplinary intersections of fine art, urban studies, and architecture. Noah earned a BFA in art practice from Portland State University in 2017, an MFA in painting from the University of Houston in 2021, and studied architecture at the University of New Mexico. He has worked as an art instructor at Portland State University, University of Houston, and Galveston Arts Center. Noah has exhibited in galleries in New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, California, and at the University of Houston. He also has over 20 years of experience as a food stylist, preparing food for product photography used in restaurant promotion.
Josh Litos was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in 1989. He received his BFA from Texas State University in 2016 and his MFA from the University of Houston. He has exhibited across Texas, including at the Inman Gallery, and Anya Tish Gallery in Houston, Texas. Litos’ work is known for its bold imagery of psychological spaces. He references the visual language of Gordon Matta Clark and De Chirico through his contemporary depictions of the environment, both real and imagined. Josh Litos lives and works in Houston, Texas.
Kevin Lopez was born in Houston, Texas in 1987. Always quiet and reserved, he grew up in a large extended family, in a completely uninteresting suburb, and always saw himself as a bit of an outsider. In school, he found comfort in drawing and painting and went on to graduate with a BFA in Art from the University of Houston in 2011. He then worked as a graphic designer for some time. Because of Covid-19 and the cultural and social environment during 2020, he decided to pursue fine art. His feelings of isolation during his formative years, as well as during mass isolation in 2020, informs his current work and has influenced his choice to explore ideas of multiplicity and solipsism as it pertains to identity through portraits and depictions of the mundane. Kevin has shown work at Lawndale Art Center and Fort Bend Museum. He has work in the Carolyn Farb collection and Catapult Gallery. Kevin currently works in his studio at BOX13 ArtSpace in Houston, Texas.
Jesus Macarena, a Chicago-based visual artist with an MFA degree from Norwich University and BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has lectured throughout the U.S. and internationally at institutions including Columbia College Chicago, Rutgers University, University of Notre Dame. And abroad at Wits University (Johannesburg, South Africa), Centro Cultural Mapocho (Santiago, Chile) and the Victorian College for the Arts (Melbourne, Australia). Macarena works under the auspices of INC. (Instituto de Nuestra Cultura) coordinating cultural programming and was a fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives plus published several research initiatives with Dialogo Journal (DePaul University), Garland Magazine (Australia) and New West Indian Guide (Netherlands).
Ruhee Maknojia is a painter and installation artist currently based in Houston, Texas. She holds an M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2019). Her conceptual research and art practice developed around the colorful heritage of textile and patterning and how they can act as a base to raise questions about contemporary ethics, values, and power structures in an ever-growing and interconnected world. Select exhibitions include Artist on Site, Asia Society Texas Center (2022); One Flower | One Life, Box 13 ArtSpace, Houston, TX (2022); Time Won't Tell, Project Gallery V, New York City (2021); The Happiness Curriculum, Eastern Connecticut State University Gallery, Connecticut (2019); Harlem Perspectives II, Faction Art Projects Gallery, New York City (2019); Feel That Other Day Running Underneath This One, Time Square Space, New York City (2018); and 42/18, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, New York City (2018). Maknojia has previously taught as an adjunct as Columbia University, Lone Star College Greenspoint, and has been a visiting guest lecturer or at Eastern Connecticut State University.
After graduating with honors from Art Center College of Design in 2015, Zach Mendoza’s exhibition history has continued to grow throughout the United States. His work has been featured in several galleries and in national publications, including New American Paintings and Creative Quarterly, among others. He has participated in numerous group shows and a number of solo shows as well. Of his work, Zach says “It is often a mishmash of ideas, images, half-truths and afterimages that become almost ghoulish amalgams of the sum of their parts. The process of creating, destroying, and then reassembling the ruins is a regular aspect of my work.”
Painting fell by the wayside once Norola Morgan discovered working with 3-d materials, and a mixed media artist was born. She assembles fabric, found objects and paper into unique art dolls that shock and delight. Combining mixed media with storytelling empower her to gender, culture, body image, sexuality and spirituality in unexpected ways. Upcycling and repurposing are important parts of her creative practice. After earning a BFA in Painting at the University of Houston in the late 90s, Norola has been an active participant in the Houston art scene. She has served in many capacities, from working as a docent at the Blaffer Gallery, teaching art afterschool through the Community Artists’ Collective and MECA, and teaching crafts for people of all ages and creating large scale, interactive installations for Houston Public Library. She has a broad exhibition history and also sells her art online and through local art and craft markets. She recently facilitated a doll making workshop with CAMH and was one of the teachers at Art League Houston’s Make and Take 2022.
Steve Parker is a graduate of the Texas Academy of Art. Parker studied under Hungarian artist, Lajos Markos, who trained at the Royal Academy of Budapest and specialized in portraiture and landscape. He has taught for over 20 years in Texas. He also worked several years as a graphic artist at the Houston Post. Parker has shown in galleries in Arizona and New Mexico as well as in Houston and San Antonio. His work is published in print and featured throughout the country. His work can also be seen in many private and public collections. Currently, he is a full time studio artist and educator.
Naomi Peterson’s work examines the complexities of relationships and identity through visual and physical metaphors. Using direct manipulation of material through hand-building, she embeds layers of personal experiences and history into each object. Her practice explores the emotive potential of objects, centering on softness as strength. Naomi received her MFA in ceramics from the University of North Texas (2021) and her BFA in ceramics at the University of Wyoming (2017). She has been an artist-in-residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and participated in the annual, short-term, Neltje artist-in-residence program in 2018. She has exhibited nationally; she recently participated in the 36th annual Denton Arts Council Materials Hard and Soft exhibition as well as Emergence at the Cinncinati Botanical Garden and Zoo during NCECA 2023. Naomi is a full-time artist and educator teaching at The Glassell School of Art, the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston, and Art League Houston.
Alexis Pye (born 1995, Detroit, MI) is a Houston-based artist whose practice explores the tradition of portraiture to express the Black body outside of its social constructs. Placing her subjects in leisurely, luscious, nature-rich and even fantastical settings, her works evoke, playfulness, wonder and Blackness, as well as the joys amidst adversity. Her formal strategies include an integration of mixed media within painting, including embroidery and punch-stitch needlework. Pye received her BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2018. She was included in the group show Animal Crossing at Inman Gallery in 2020, and presented her first solo show, The Real and the Fantastic/The Irrational Joys of the Axis, at Inman Gallery in July 2021. In 2021, her work was included in the group exhibitions My Mirror Is Fine curated by Miles Payne at the Community Artists Collective, Houston and Honor Thy Self at Martha's Contemporary in Austin. In 2022, she collaborated with the Houston Rockets x CAMH at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. She is currently a Lawndale Artist Studio Program Participant for the 2022-2023 season, where her exhibition "You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, and blue sea and black people" is on view through March 11, 2023.
Cary Reeder, a Miami, Florida native, has made Houston, Texas, her home since 1996. Working in multi-media including paint, paper, and colored vinyl, she is keenly interested in how colors interact and how light, shadow, and space create ephemeral sensory experiences. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions and in solo shows at Art League Houston, Mystic Lyon, Galveston Arts Center, Optical Project/Bill’s Junk, and Lawndale Art Center. Her sculpture, "Treeodesic Dome" was included in the public art project True North 2021. She is a past recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Houston Arts Alliance and in 2014, was a Hunting Prize Finalist. Her work been featured twice in New American Paintings and Acrylic Artist. She teaches at Art League Houston.
www.caryreeder.com
Mary Rogers received her MS from the University of Houston, Clear Lake, and her BS in Art Education from the University of Northern Illinois. She is an instructor at Bellaire High School and an award-winning, nationally recognized jeweler and metal-smith. In 2006 the Texas Commission on the Arts honored Mary as a “Texas Original” for her outstanding craftsmanship and high artistic standards.
www.maryrogersjewelry.com
Charlotte Seifert is a Houston-based artist who received her BFA in studio art and MFA in painting from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is represented by Jack Meir Gallery in Houston and Blue Print Gallery in Dallas. She is a member of Burning Bones Press Houston and PrintMatters Houston. She maintains a home studio where she paints. She has taught art in private schools in Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, as well as classes in SMU's Continuing Education and Workshops at the Dallss Museum of Art.
Laura Spector is a Houston-based artist and art instructor. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is best known for her acclaimed Museum Anatomy project which began in 1996, where she collaborated with museum curators in 16 countries searching for hidden, stolen, lost and destroyed paintings to be recontextualized in paint onto the human body. Among Spector’s honors are a Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, an Individual Grant from Houston Art Alliance, the Sovereign Asian Art Finalist Award, Hong Kong; and an Artist-in-residence at AtelierHaus Hilmsen, Hilmsen, Germany. She is also an Artist-in-Residence recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
J. Michael Stovall is an artist and educator based in Houston, TX. He has worked professionally as an animator, illustrator and designer for more than 30 years. Mike earned a BA in Illustration and Graphic Design from The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and also studied at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. He has worked as an art instructor at the Glassell Junior School, HSPVA, Pasadena ISD and Alvin ISD. As a founding member of the SketchKlubb art collective and a former member of Box13 Artspace Mike has exhibited in galleries in New York and Houston and was a principal animator on the movie A Scanner Darkly.
Alexander Squier is printmaker, illustrator, and installation artist whose work is inspired by the built environment of Houston. Squier earned his Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the Museum School in Boston, where he taught before returning to Houston and teaching printmaking locally at University of Houston and the Glassell School of Art. Squier is a resident artist at BOX 13 ArtSpace in Houston's East End.
Alexander Squier es un grabador, ilustrador, y artista de instalaciones, cuyo obra está inspirada por el entorno construido de Houston. Squier obtuvó su Maestría en Arte de la Escuela del Museo (SMFA) en Boston, donde enseñaba antes de volver a Houston y enseñar localmente en la Universidad de Houston y la Escuela Glassell (parte del MFAH). Squier es un artista residente en BOX 13 ArtSpace, en la zona East End de Houston.
Born in Texas in 1966, Myke Venable studied art at Lamar University where he received his BFA and MA. Now living in Houston, he has been teaching Drawing and making art at a prolific rate and equally participating in a variety of exhibitions and collected by numerous individuals and corporations world wide. Venable is currently represented by Gallery Sonja Roesch.
PASt INSTRUCTORS
Kelly Alison is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited in National and International Museums, most notably at the Shanghai Art Museum, the National Museum of Art in Lima, Peru and The Fine Arts Museum in Houston Texas. She has studied under James Surls, John Alexander and Dick Wray. She has been published in books, catalogs and magazines such as Art in America, Texas Monthly, and Town and Country and her work is on permanent exhibition in downtown Houston. Alison’s work can be seen in many private and public collections.
www.kellyalison.com
Charis Ammon received her BFA in painting at Texas State University in 2014. She continued her education, receiving a MFA in painting at the University of Houston in 2018. She is represented by Inman Gallery in Houston and teaches painting and drawing at the University of Houston. While Ammon is known most for her oil paintings, she works in a variety of mediums.
Zain Awais studied Fine Arts for several years in Pakistan, before moving to the Georgia to pursue a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. His work has expanded over the years from using traditional mediums to working in multimedia and creates time based work. After receiving his BFA, he has spent several years freelancing as well as working at Art League Houston as a content producer and animator.
Salli Babbitt has taught abstract art for over 30 years. Salli is now displaying her works at Mecox in Highland Village, Olympus on Bingle and Winter Street Studios (Studio A10). She is an official Corporate vendor for the Gables Luxury Apartments in Houston and Dallas. She has a teaching studio at Art Supply on Almeda in Houston as well as her own studio in San Leon, Texas. Additionally, she is actively involved with the Surfrider Foundation and the Bay Keeper Foundation.
Hagit Barkai is a visual artist and working primarily in painting. Her process also includes drawing, prints, and photo-performances. Hagit received her MFA in painting and drawing from Penn State University, PA, her B.A. in Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and she studied at the Jerusalem Studio School in Jerusalem, Israel. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as Praxis Gallery in New York, NY; Scope in Miami Basel, Kunsthalle Faust, Hannover, Germany; Manifesta, Hasselt Belgium, Chashama Gallery in New York, NY and Crane Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been reviewed in various media such as Creative Loafing Charlotte, NC; Arts art news in Charlotte NC, Houston Chronicle in Houston, TX and Pittsburgh City Paper in Pittsburgh, PA.
James Beard is a printmaker specializing in screen printing, letterpress, and risograph printing. Since 2007, he has worked extensively with artists, designers, and businesses to create unique works in print. He has printed on projects for Lawndale Art Center, DiverseWorks, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Beard is also a founding member of Mystic Multiples, where he collaborates extensively with co-founder Sarah Welch to produce original prints, comics, and zines .
Susan Budge has been making ceramic sculpture for over thirty years. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Texas Tech University, a Master of Arts degree from University of Houston and a Master of Fine Arts degree from University of Texas at San Antonio. Budge’s work has been included in hundreds of exhibitions throughout the United States and is included in private collections in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia and Greece. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Art Museum at Northern Arizona State University, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. She became Department Head of Ceramics at San Antonio College where she earned tenure, full professor, was awarded the NISOD excellence in teaching award and established an endowed ceramics scholarship fund prior to retirement in 2015.
Ruben Coy studied at the University of Houston and The Houston Museum of Fine Arts School. An instructor for 24 years, his works are found in numerous exhibitions, museums, galleries and collections. His popular rainforest paintings reference the mind's eye– with the theme of earth as a sacred place; they evoke both religious and sensuous feelings. Ruben has been teaching at Art League Houston for over 15 years. He specializes in glazing techniques with oils. He retired from Art League Houston in Spring 2020.
Sasha Dela, originally from Atlanta, completed a residency at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Core Program in 2007. She completed her Master of Fine Art in San Francisco at California College of the Arts in 2005, and her Bachelor of Fine Art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2000, and was awarded the DeCosse Fellowship, to study at the Accademia Di Belle Arte, Florence, Italy in 2000.
Claire Elestwani is a printmaker, designer and performance artist living and working in Houston. She received her BA from Rice University and her MFA from University of Houston.
Garland Fielder is an artist, art writer and designer living/working in Houston. He earned an MFA from the University of North Texas in 2010. Later, he received his Master’s in Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. He has exhibited regionally and nationally for the past 15 years. His writing has appeared in Artforum, Art Lies, Art Papers and Glasstire.com, among other publications. He is represented by Anya Tish Gallery in Houston.
Gao Hang is a Houston-based Chinese painter and currently a Painting/Drawing Instructor at University of Houston. He is also represented by both Anya Tish Gallery (Houston) and The Secondbedroom Gallery (San Francisco). Gao received his Master of Fine Art degree in Painting/Drawing from the University of Houston, and Bachelor of Art degree in Oil Painting from the Capital Normal University.
Clara Hoag received two BFAs from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in 2009, and received an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Georgia (Athens) in 2013. In addition to teaching, Clara has been a resident artist at The Archie Bray Foundation and The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; she has participated in a number of national shows; she has received grants from the Puffin Foundation and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation; and she plays a mean banjo.
Gaby Hurtado-Ramos is an artist, printmaker, and illustrator. She is a 2020 Fall artist-in-residence at the Printing Museum in Houston and an art instructor at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Gaby majored in Studio Art at Oberlin College and teaches workshops in a variety of digital, printmaking, and bookmaking techniques. Before moving back to her hometown, Gaby was an artist-in-residence at an art collective space in Providence, Rhode Island and a print studio monitor at the Drawing Studio in Tucson, Arizona. Gaby’s work has been exhibited in community spaces as well as traditional art galleries. She specializes in screenprinting and relief printing, and has books and zines in multiple private and public collections. Her illustration collaborations include work for ProPublica, the Highlander Research and Education Center, the Tucson Jewish History Museum, and Girls for Gender Equity NYC.
Barbara Jackson is a Houston based artist whose work is held in public, corporate, and private collections in the United States and Europe. She received a MFA from the University of Hawaii. Her post-graduate training took place in Florence, Italy where she studied classical painting techniques and conservation methodology. A dedicated teacher as well as artist, Barbara Jackson’s experience includes over twenty-five years as a museum educator and studio arts instructor at art schools, colleges and universities in Hawaii, California, and Texas. She is currently a technical consultant for Golden Artist Colors. When not working in her studio, she presents lectures on materials and techniques and conducts workshops nationally and internationally.
Erin Joyce received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. She is primarily a figurative painter focusing on surreal landscapes. She is an instructor at The Glassell Junior School where her students regularly inspire her colorful and imaginative paintings.
Jessica Kreutter received an MFA from The University of Tennessee in 2010. For ten years prior to graduate school, she worked as an artist and teacher in Portland, Oregon. She has been a resident artist at ART342, Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch, PlatteForum, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Caldera and The Oregon College of Art and Craft. Recently, she designed an ice sculpture in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver) and created an unfired clay installation for the 2013 NCECA Project Space. Her clay installation work is featured in the January 2014 Issue of Ceramics Monthly. She lives and works in Houston, TX.
Nicolle LaMere spent the first twenty-five years of life in southern Wisconsin on the fringe of suburbia and farmland. Having received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (2011), LaMere relocated to Lubbock, Texas, to complete her MFA from Texas Tech University (2017). After graduation, she participated in the Land Art of the American West field study program, traveling over 6,000 miles and camping through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. She has completed multiple technical ceramic research grants, the most recent being the NCECA Graduate Student Fellowship (2015). She was a 2021 Fulbright semi-finalist for an Independent Research Grant to Japan and a 2022 Semi-Finalist for a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award for an Independent Research Grant with the Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland. LaMere completed an eleven-month artist residency at The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and a four-month residency at The Printing Museum. Nicolle LaMere is currently the Education Coordinator for Art League Houston.
Melinda Laszczynski received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Houston in 2015 and her BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2010. She recently had solo shows at Cardoza Fine Art and galleryHOMELAND in Houston, TX. She has participated in group shows at multiple venues across Texas, including Galleri Urbane (Dallas), Lawndale Art Center (Houston), and was recently included in the 2015 Amarillo Museum of Art sculpture biennial. Laszczynski is an She has also shown at Forum Artspace in Cleveland, OH and SOHO20 in NY, NY. Her work is included in the collections of University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, and UT Tyler in Tyler, Texas. Laszczynski was featured in New American Paintings MFA Annual #111 (2014) and #123 (2016).
Shayne Murphy is an artist and adjunct professor at Lone Star College and San Jacinto College. He graduated with his MFA in Drawing/Painting from the University of North Texas in 2013 and was recently part of the Lawndale Artist Studio Residency for 2013-2014. His work has been exhibited in several galleries, most recently Anya Tish Gallery in Houston and Cris Worley Fine Arts in Dallas.
Preetika Rajgariah (b. 1985) is an interdisciplinary artist whose works examine the complicated intersections of cultural identity, race, capitalism, and sexuality while referencing her traditional upbringing as an Indian born American. Rajgariah has attended residencies at Oxbow School of Art, ACRE, Vermont Studio Center, and the School of Visual Arts, and she has exhibited and performed in spaces such as Western Exhibitions and Roots & Culture in Chicago as well as Art League Houston, Lawndale Art Center, and Women & Their Work in Texas. She received her MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and currently lives and works in Houston, TX.
S Rodriguez is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, and co-founder of the curatorial collective Barbee Manshun. Their work often deals with bodies -- linguistic, digital, and physical.
Rajab Ali Sayed is a visual artist who lives and works in Houston, TX. He received his BFA from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan in 2013 and his MFA from the University of Houston, TX in 2017. Rajab has attended Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota as a Fulbright Exchange Scholar (2011) and completed the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation and Vermont Studio Center Residencies on the East Coast (2017). He has also taught drawing and painting at The University of Houston.
Intrigued by the term utilitarian, Gary Schott finds himself drawn toward creating objects that balance between aesthetics and function; wearable and non-wearable. With a humorous undertone, the work allows for playful interactions. His studio work uses mechanical motion to create kinetic works and he has taught workshops around the U.S., among others, at Penland, the Houston Metal Art Guild, and the Metal Art Society of Southern California. Gary was the Chair and Professor of Metals at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio and is currently completing a residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (until December 2015).
Delaney Smith is a visual artist working primarily with paper and bookmaking to create sculptures and interactive books. She received her BFA in Graphic Communications from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2007 and her MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas in 2013. Delaney was an artist-in-residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in 2013, and is currently an artist member of Box13 Artspace and a featured artist at Hunter Gather Project in Houston, Texas.
Sarah Sudhoff is a Cuban-American artist based in Houston, Tx. Her work has been exhibited at Blaffer Art Museum, McNay Art Museum, Donggang Photo Museum, Austin Museum of Art, Pioneer Works, Luckman Gallery, Magenta Foundation, Filter Photo, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Galveston Arts Center, and the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. Articles including her work have appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Time, Cabinet, and Southwest Contemporary. Sudhoff’s research and residencies have been supported by Artpace, Tiffany Foundation, Penland School of Craft, McColl Art Center, Houston Arts Alliance, Kinsey Institute, the DoSeum, and DOMUS Artist Residency in Italy. Sudhoff's recent visiting artist lectures include Rice University, RMIT University in Melbourne, Rhode Island School of Design, Blaffer Art Museum, Health & Wellbeing International Conference in Oxford, England, and Material Selves: Health, Gender and Performance symposium at the University of London. Sudhoff’s recent and forthcoming exhibitions, public installations and performances include; Sculpture Month Houston, Museum of Contemporary Art Nashville, Gatewood Gallery, UNC, Greensboro; Visual Arts Center, Richmond; DOMUS Artist Residency, Italy; Houston Center for Photography, Houston; Canopy Projects, Austin; Aurora Picture Show, Houston, Texas; Satellite Art Fair, Miami; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio; Ellio Fine Art, Houston; and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, Lubbock. Sudhoff completed an MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design, New York, and a BA in Journalism and Photography from the University of Texas at Austin.
Eric Thayer has spent much of his life on the move, living in multiple states in America's Eastern, Midwestern and Southern regions. Through this itinerant lifestyle, he has soaked in the cultural nuance of these spaces. His work-a diverse collection of sculptural forms, performances, collages and digital media-stems from his observations of how cultural, political and other abstract systems operate to frame behavior for individuals and communities. Eric has received awards from Site Gallery Houston, the University of Houston Graduate School, and most recently, Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Conservancy. His recent exhibitions include The Body: An International Exhibition and Documentary at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Gimpo, South Korea; and the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Mr. Thayer has studied at the prestigious Penland School of Craft, and has earned degrees from the University of Toledo (BFA, BA) in 2008, and the University of Houston (MFA) in 2017. As a visual arts instructor, Eric values diversity, collaboration, experimentation and dialogue within learning environments. With over a decade of experience teaching in community and university settings, he is committed to helping students unlock their creative potential in a supportive, tolerant environment.
