Featured Alumni

Personal Statement: Embedded within the fabric of our daily lives and deeply interwoven within our historical narratives, lie moments of profound interaction between cultures and identities that are conventionally perceived as discrete entities. These junctures yield not only art objects and traditions, but more significantly, they give rise to identities and lived experiences. The dynamic tensions emanating from these encounters, along with the complex tapestry of our existence, bear immense historical significance. Regrettably, sustaining dialogues that dissect the influences shaping the reception of these multifaceted identities has proven difficult.

Central to my artistic pursuit are themes of escapism, mythology, and the enigmatic thresholds of memory and identity. My chosen medium, often steel, serves as a conduit to subtly convey these notions. I draw inspiration from the reservoir of personal anecdotes, lived encounters, and the rich tapestry of culturally resonant mythological archetypes. Through my work, I intertwine contemporary interpretations of human connections with the historical fissures that inhabit this realm, both in abstract contemplation and intricate discourse. My ongoing exploration of the concept of "hybridity," particularly within my evolving role as a contemporary artist of mixed-race heritage, continually evolves. The frictions at the crossroads of artistic expression and scholarly analysis mirror the intricate interplay between our present-day tangible realities and the intangible aspects of our existence.

Unveiling the narratives that persist within our collective consciousness offers profound insights into the elusive nature of liminal identities and their intricate placement within the contemporary societal framework. These narratives also lay bare the societal treatment of such identities, serving as mirrors that reflect our cultural ethos. To what extent does the human form, with its intricate construction, intertwine with the formulation and delineation of identity? As a creator, my craft is rooted in the exploration of such inquiries through the language of materials.

In refining my artistic vocabulary, I seek to foster a richer dialogue that probes the intricate threads of cultural intersection and the mosaic of individuality. Through my work, I endeavor to unravel the multifaceted layers of our shared human experience and contribute to a deeper comprehension of the nuanced interplay between identity, memory, and the myriad narratives that shape our world.

Mohabbat Khatibnia-Mansouri (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist from Hillsboro, OR. She received her BFA from Portland State University in spring of 2023, and began her MFA as a Sculpture candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in fall of 2023. Mohabbat’s labor-intensive practice studies safety, public safety, community, and aesthetic, as a vehicle for her community and interventionist work. Her hope is to refine a practice that is geared towards making fine art that has a socially engaged impact. Her desire is to serve others with a radical sort of transparency that cultivates community with those she engages with, as well as those who engage with her work.

Scout Cartagena (they/she) is a glass artist and printmaker, and uses the aesthetics of glass and installation to convey themes of self-identity, memory, heirlooms, and chronic illness.

Cartagena received their BFA in Glass and Art Education from Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA. 

Kyriakos Alexander Paraskevopoulos (he/him) is an Athens-based visual artist and sculptor, holding an Integrated Master Degree from the Athens School of Fine Arts. As an undergraduate student at the ASFA, he experimented with a variety of media by taking courses in drawing, painting, and ceramics, specializing in sculpture.

Following his aspiration to express personal and contemporary issues while exploring the limits of art-making, he perceives sculpture as an ever-expanding field. As such, he is constantly approaching it using a plethora of methods and materials, with drawing having an integral role in his process. In his studio practice, he is interested in the phenomenology and materiality of object-making. He renders these notions by focusing on the very processes of research in terms of form and context and creates installations emphasizing aspects of negative space and composition in dialogue with space. As syntheses of interdependent parts, his pieces can be interpreted as drawings in space: single sculptures, systems, and/or fields. Through this approach, he attempts to balance the intimate with the universal side, evoke feelings of calm and tension, and emphasize the notions of causality and ephemerality.

During his studies, he participated in various workshops in Greece and abroad and completed two internships. He was an intern sculptor at the archaeological site and museum of Keramikos and later a production assistant in the production of the performance Transverse Orientation by the acclaimed choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou. Over the past few years, he gained professional experience as an assistant set designer in television and theatre productions and participated in various group exhibitions; the latest being at the «Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition – 2022» at York Art Gallery in the UK. He is also a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship for Graduate Students.

Suni Sonqo Vizcarra Wood (he/him) (Quechua Nation, Peru) is an artist born in Taos, NM, and raised in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Cusco, Peru. Imagination and creativity connected to magical worlds reflected in his art from a very young age are still part of Suni’s artistic process. Suni’s life has taken place immersed in his rich Indigenous culture of Andean pre-Columbian tradition and is part of an active international network of Indigenous Nations dedicated to preserving ancestral roots while embracing the future. Suni studied sculpture at the National Art University Diego Quispe Tito in Cusco, Perú, and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe, NM where he received his BFA with honors in December 2021. He is a member of the Alpha Chi Honorary Society. Suni won Tribal College Journal (TCJ) first-place film awards, first-place digital art selected for the TCJ cover, and several IAIA and AIHEC awards. Suni was featured in Trend Magazine, and participated in art shows at Lightwell Gallery, Oklahoma; Balzer Contemporary Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Zatara Contemporary Gallery, Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM; International Folk Art Market (IFAM), Santa Fe, NM; Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), Santa Fe, NM; SITE Santa Fe, NM.

Personal Statement: Transformation, regeneration, and healing are interconnected concepts in my work, with messages of environmental and social justice. My expressions encompass film, jewelry, digital art, illustration, and primarily large sculpture. I work with diverse materials such as wood, bronze, and stone. I bridge contemporary and ancient aesthetics with figurative mythological beings, stylized symbolism, and interweaving magical and spiritual realms. My inspiration flows from pre-Columbian Quechua ancestry and Andean cosmovision honoring Indigenous peoples and land, celebrating the beauty and spiritual depth of my culture. My work awakens my generation to achieve a balance between living immersed in this world of modernity and maintaining our cultural roots. By healing the division of colonialism aftermaths and historical traumas, Indigenous peoples can emerge with dignity to build our collective destiny, reuniting our nations. 

Personal Statement: The foundation of my practice is rooted in methods and acts of translation and language. I play with materials to discover hybrid forms and functions, abstract languages, and explore narratives of Iranian-American and queer identities, real and invented. Through frameworks of hybridity my work translates ideas physically through live performance, multimedia documentation, ceramics, sculpture, and dance. When deployed in concert these ideas ask questions and have the possibility to invent new ways of understanding. Tied up in the aesthetics of identities, functional handmade and readymade objects, and the language of dance is a dedication to the notion of failure, and evidence of effort. I am interested in what languages and materials we have at our disposal to make meaning, where the emotional mythologizes utility and identity, and how we can reconsider the literal and cultural functions of objects and bodies.

Born in Taiwan (1998), Liang-Yu Huang (he/him) pursued his MFA in sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received his Bachelor of Fine Art from Taipei National University of the Arts (2021), majoring in sculpture.  

Liang-Yu’s practice involves reconfigured actions that highlight exciting instruction of social system in nowadays cityscape. His research is bonded with urban modern-ology, especially the instructive objects in modern cities. The journey to rediscover his living environment has become the core of his work. Through integrative interventions that emphasize in deception and provocation, the works aim to counter the established narrative to reveal the power behind the objects. With sculpture, installation, and 3D modeling, the works reflect the desire for landscape and architecture. They create a dialogue and record to question the meaning of buildings and histories omitted during construction restoration and destruction. 

Personal Statement: Former baby, soon-to-be corpse.

Joo Young Lee (b. 1990, Seoul) is a multidisciplinary artist working and living in Chicago. Lee holds a BFA Sculpture degree from Pratt Institute, New York, and participated in an exchange BA program at Central Saint Martins, London. Her work has been shown in institutions including Galapagos Art Space (New York), Steuben Gallery (New York), Seoul Art Space Seogyo (Seoul), and Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago). Lee also has participated in screenings including BlaBlaBlind at The Book Society (Seoul), Post/Natural: 98% Air at the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection (Chicago) and Simulythos at MacLean Screening Room (Chicago). Lee is a recipient of the Publication Award from the Department of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lee is currently teaching a virtual human how to dance, following pigeons, forming the land and the ocean, looking into dying plants, collecting objects of luck, and playing Godus and Gardenscape.

Galen Odell-Smedley (b. 1988, Berkeley, CA) asserts a craft ethos in his multi-headed practice. Slow, considered processes reflect a desire for material intimacy. His sculptural systems, speculative objects, installations, and performative exchanges envision platforms for unlikely ways of knowing. His inquiries are directed efforts to teach, to imagine how we might collectively shift inertias, to invent tools that pose and solve problems.

Galen Odell-Smedley holds a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from Skidmore College. His recent awards include the International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, the John W. Kurtich Foundation Travel Scholarship, and the Saratoga Arts Council Community Arts Grant. He has exhibited at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Belger Crane Yard Studios, Hyde Park Art Center, Tang Teaching Museum, (e)merge Fair, Schacht Gallery, Cooley Gallery, Schick Gallery, SAIC Galleries, Buttondown Gallery, and House of Creative Soul, among others. Galen currently lives and works in Chicago and upstate New York.

Caroline Dahlberg is a performer and sensory choreographer. She received her BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2014, and was an MFA Candidate in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Barbara Polster (b. 1987, Cleveland, OH) is an artist whose project is to trace methods of language, literature, and cognition through to a poetics of theoretical space.

Recent solo exhibitions include: High Noon_1 (Summit), GLASSBOX gallery, Seattle, WA (2016); Cape Disappointment, Forum Artspace, Cleveland, OH (2016); a [super]symmetry (2014) and superposition (2013), William Busta Gallery, Cleveland, OH. In addition, she has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including exhibitions with Field Projects Gallery (NYC) at Satellite Miami, Punch Gallery (Seattle), AIR Gallery (Brooklyn), and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was awarded the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland Neznadny + Schwartz Visiting Curator Selection by João Ribas, Deputy Director & Senior Curator, Serralves. In 2016, she was the recipient of a King County 4Culture Tech Specific Grant for an upcoming installation work. Currently, she is INTERLINK Visiting Artist & Curator Program Coordinator, Writing Fellow, and contributor to F News Magazine at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. MFA 2018, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; BFA 2010, Cleveland Institute of Art.

Born in New Delhi (1990), Ayesha Singh pursued an MFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. She received a diploma in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, UK (2010) and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture, from the Slade School of Fine Art (2013).

She has exhibited solo shows at the Gujral Foundation, New Delhi, India (2017); Exhibit320, New Delhi, India (2016); and has participated in several group shows including Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK (2017); EXPO Chicago, Chicago, USA (2017); Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India (2017); Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, USA (2017); Hyde Park Art Centre, Chicago, USA (2017); India Art Fair, Exhibit320, New Delhi, India (2016); IGNCA, New Delhi, India (2015); Casa de Dona Gisele, Curitiba, Brazil (2015); GallerySke, New Delhi, India (2014); University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (2014); the Watermans Gallery, London, UK (2014) and Reading University, Reading, UK (2013).

Ashley M. Freeby (b. 1986, rural Pennsylvania) is a multidisciplinary artist who starts at the beginning of American history to reveal how the history of injustices against people of color inform our understanding of American society. Recent solo exhibitions include: Palimpsest: present through past (2017), GalleryX, Chicago. In addition, she has participated in group exhibitions, including exhibitions with Sullivan Galleries (Chicago), EXPO Chicago, and Samek Art Museum in (PA). BA 2015, Bucknell University.

Through woven and knitted fiber structures, wood, architectural models, and installation, Seomy Ahn’s work reorients bodily circulation and defunctionalizes architectural systems. Focusing on material-based exploration, Ahn re-appropriates transitional spaces in the urban environment such as revolving doors and stairs. Acts of infiltration are explored conceptually and materially; Ahn re-builds revolving doors to activate the horizontal infiltration, and stairs to resist the vertical occupation of space. Painted cement infiltrates the porous membrane of knitted yarn, creating fragile surfaces. Wood—instead of being a support structure—relies on fabric that stabilizes the structure. The structure that suggests the division of the revolving door sits on the ground, and is only activated through a kicking motion. Seomy Ahn’s sculptures await for an activator; resisting the verticality, subtly suggesting the ground-level-ness of bodies. The continuous path of a body in thresholds collapses time and space into mere imagery or residue of the process at last.

The collapsed architectural thresholds become non-functional beings, destroying the distinction of here and there, interior and exterior, downstairs and upstairs. Ahn’s sculptures are distrust and resistance of the seemingly protective, permanent boundaries.

Some people say, “That must be a sphere, I saw a shadow and that was a circle.” Other people say, “No, I saw a shadow too but it was rectangular. It must be a box.” They believe what they saw, and believe other people were wrong.

Both people were correct because it was a cylinder. The main theme of Shinnosuke Miyake’s work is “difference of perspective.”  Even though essence is only one, it will have varied shapes depending on how you see or the place where you are standing. There exists shadow and essence in many kinds of things: religion, politics, neighbors, or yourself. People struggle to know "how to see" and "the correct place" to see that.

Ruiyun Ba is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago and Beijing, who mainly works with performance, video, and public intervention. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art in furniture design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing and was a Master of Fine Art Sculpture candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ruiyun was raised in a small village in Shangdong, China. Her childhood experience in the countryside has strongly influenced her current work. Her projects consider the changes in modern social identities against the gradual loss of intimate social relationships. Her work has been shown in several exhibitions, for instance, The Second Farewell (2015) in Beijing, and Spa and Screen (2017) in Chicago, The Dust of the World, Washed by Droplets of Dew (2018) in Japan.

Nick Bamford’s assemblage sculptures and installations are anthologies involving disparate objects, forms, and imagery that coalesce into unified larger forms, spaces, and experiences. From close up, the cacophony of imagery creates a disarray of unconventional materials that seem unconnected and disjointed, but from farther away the characterization of the sculpture changes into something completely different. Bamford is interested in this multiplicity and the complexity the viewer confronts in their specific relation and position to what is being seen. Nick focuses on the connections between the objects, both physically and metaphysically. It is these connections that draw out Bamford’s insatiable curiosity to storytelling, narration, and how they relate to the uncanny qualities the objects’ placement creates.

L Koo is a contemporary artist whose work explores the relationships of light/lightness, the manifestations of spaces made external, and the weight found between places. Raised in Northern California, she is heavily influenced by the quality of light found in that region, and it is light which is the predominant driving factor in her work. Primarily working as an installation based artist, she constructs deceptively simple pieces from elements of photography, light mapping, sound, paper and porcelain, amongst others, which reside chiefly around issues of space, time, and fragility. Solo exhibitions include her recent installation at Jack Straw Cultural Center (2018; Seattle) at GLASSBOX Gallery (2016; Seattle), her work was also included in group shows at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (2018; Chicago) and Out of Sight (2016; Seattle), among others. She earned her BFA (2015) from Cornish College in Seattle, Wa and is a current MFA candidate (2019) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently lives and works.

Julie Boldt was born in 1991 and raised in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Julie explores the changing fundamental nature of humanity and the organization of ideas as an object. Accepting the inherent futility of communication, she aims to play within the gaps of understanding.

Jairo Banuelos (b. 1991, Los Angeles, California) uses drawing on his sculptures to push the idea that they can be made into three dimensional objects and show different perspectives.

He is influenced by personal experiences of being discriminated against and observations of others who receive similar or worse treatment. The journey to rediscover his cultural identity has become the core of his work. He is interested in how people's actions, ideas, and experiences leave a deep impact on others.  

Gibran Mevlana was born in San Francisco, CA, 1986. She received her BFA from Art Center College of Design in 2010. She has shown at James Harris Gallery, Gallery 102 and Robert's Projects. 

Cain Baum is a native Chicagoan that needs the lake. Baum’s artwork takes into consideration the many relationships encountered outside of romance. The artist looks specifically to human relationships that change without maintenance and shifting attitudes towards institutions and dialogue ready for reexamination in our current social climate. Baum’s sculptures are all about joinery, a relationship strategy that takes the two moments in a connection and affects both sides: building structures, creating spaces and leveraging objects in assemblages. In wooden joinery each piece is outfitted to snug up together, with fabric there is stitching, with metal, welds, in weighted relationships there is balance and shared strength, with stacking there are equal moments of justice where the two forms nestle and provide strength to the next layer. It is this joinery that Baum exploits, sometimes equal moments coming together visible and straightforward, other moments the artist hides the mechanics and shows only the relationships of material. The combinations of these moments are of utmost importance and provide for the contemplation and commentary on states of self, place and politics of the home, using this specific feature to project to larger spheres.