Titles and contact information are displayed below. Click on a
section heading or use tabs at left to see all listings for that
section. Click on a name to see full biography for that person.
Painting and DrawingM.F.A. Painting, Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Bloomfield Hills, MI, 2005M.F.A. Drawing, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 2003B.F.A. Painting, Azad University, Tehran, Iran, 1998Appointed 2015
Video and Media ArtsM.F.A. University of California, San Diego, 2000B.F.A. NYSC, Alfred University, School of Art and Design, Alfred, NY, 1992Appointed 2005
PrintmakingM.F.A. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 2001B.A. Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design University of Dundee, 1998Appointed 2017
Ceramic SculptureM.F.A. Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, 1981B.F.A. NYSC, School of Art and Design at Alfred University, Alfred, NY, 1978Appointed 1997
M.F.A. Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2019B.F.A., Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY, 2004
Office Hours: 7:30-4:00 M-F Advising: 10:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00 M-F
Ariel Collatz is an academic advisor and program manager for the Arts Group Advising Center. She holds a B.A. degree in History from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota and a M.S. in Counseling with a specialization in Career Development from Sacramento State University. She has worked as an undergraduate advisor at UC Davis for over 10 years. Her passion is helping students create a rewarding undergraduate experience.
Kathryn Shickman received her Bachelor of Arts degree in
Psychology from University of California, Berkeley and a Master
of Arts degree in Human Development from California State
University, Los Angeles. She has worked as an undergraduate
advisor and program coordinator at The Arts Group Advising Center
here at UC Davis since August, 2014. She has previously worked as
a study coordinator at UC Davis MIND Institute, and as an
advising assistant on campus in Mechanical & Aerospace
Engineering and at Services for International Students and
Scholars. In her career prior to coming to UC Davis, she has held
many roles in the fields of education and developmental
psychology.
B.A., California State University, Stanislaus--Studio Art
Having been stripped of bodily/cognitive/emotional autonomy by
illnesses which interrupted his undergraduate studies,
Phillip Byrne utilizes the act of making as an opportunity to
play the role of ontological surgeon – placing his own
metaphysical body on the dissection table and exploring its
interior contents. He explores holistic ontological identity
through divergent processes which manifest personal associations
and allow for explorations of the interior anatomies of
mind/body/emotions, appraisals of their damages, and questionings
of relationship to all three.
B.F.A., Universidad de Chile, Santiago -- Painting
Sofía del Pedregal was born in 1989 in Concepción, Chile. She is
an artist formerly based in Santiago, Chile. In 2013, she
obtained her BFA Visual Arts degree at Universidad de Chile.
Since 2010 she has participated in national and international
group exhibitions and has made three solo shows in Santiago,
Chile.
B.A., University of California, Davis -- Women and Gender StudiesB.A., Maharishi University -- Art and Self DevelopmentM.A., Maharishi University -- Studio Art
Morgan Flores is a Mexican-Japanese-European-American visual
artist from California, exploring themes related to
decolonization, the everyday, detribalized Indigenous identity,
and present-day relationships to land and the environment.
Working with natural, non-toxic, recycled, and found materials,
Morgan seeks to provide reflections of our unsustainable modern
world, and to present possible solutions through the lens of a
descendant of people Indigenous to the Americas.
B.F.A., University of Wisconsin, Stout/Menomonie -- Studio Art-Ceramics
Emily Gordon received her BFA in Studio Art Ceramics from
the University of Wisconsin-Stout in December of 2019. Her work
functions in a place of in-betweenness by weaving together
influences of painting, ceramics and performance art.
B.A., Sonoma State University, -- Studio Art-Painting Emphasis
Melanie Hernandez is a Los Angeles born artist who attended
Sonoma State University as a Studio Art major with an emphasis in
painting, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2018.
Thinking about memory, everyday surroundings, and secondhand
objects, Melanie is working to highlight the human experience
through her own identity. Using oil painting and printmaking, she
observes and documents objects and moments that emphasize the
relationship humans have with the environments they surround
themselves with, while working to preserve her own memories.”
B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz, -- Art
Kelley O’Leary is an interdisciplinary artist moving between
image-making, sculpture and social practice. Compelled by the
ways our digital landscapes have become part of our ecology, she
investigates how our future relationship to the natural world
will be shaped by these forces and vice versa.
Whitney Vangrin is an artist formerly based in Brooklyn, New
York, but originally from Northern California, who
works across mediums with an emphasis in performance and
video. Equal parts physical and psychological, her performances
question perceptions of authenticity, creating works that hinge
upon reality and simulation while making allusions to film,
ritual, and folk traditions.
B.F.A., University of Colorado-- Boulder, Sculpture & Post Studio Practice
Originally from New York City and based in Colorado, Sam
Arcara is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work
explores the visual vernacular of human relations to natural and
rural landscape, primarily through the lens of land use and built
environments. Her work is grounded in place specificity and
narrative, utilizing materials found in the field in unison with
landscape photography to create immersive installations.
Havilah Aos studied at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul,
Minnesota from 2008 to 2010 and later, after interrupting her
studies to live and work in Germany and travel along the western
coast of North and South America, she transferred to the
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where she completed
her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017.
B.F.A., Studio Arts, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Jesse Aylsworth’s paintings are constructed utilizing a curated
digital archive of images influenced by fantasy, science fiction,
astrology, esoterica and queer aesthetics.
Hailing from The South Bay Los Angeles, Dino Capaldi creates
sculptural ceramic works that evoke the coastal landscape of that
area. Drawn to the materiality and history of ceramics, his work
sits astride conventional and abstract forms.
B.A., Art, California State University, Sacramento
Mercy Hawkins received her BA in studio art from California State
University, Sacramento, with a minor in history, 2018. She works
presently as an archivist and communications assistant at the
Before Columbus Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting
multi-cultural literature and art.
M.A., Creative Arts, San Francisco State UniversityB.A., Buddhist Studies, Naropa University, Boulder
Gretchen LeMaistre was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and has
lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her research and
photo-based practices, she explores the complicated and sometimes
troubling legacies of colonial American settlement.
Danielle Torvik-Staffen earned her studio arts BFA from San Jose
State University in 2017. Her nonrepresentational oil paintings
stem from her explorations with the versatility and
unpredictability of paint. She uses brushes, squeegees, sticks,
dustbins, and any object that can transfer paint.
We would like to hear from you! To stay connected, please keep us
up-to-date on your life after UC Davis, including your awards,
achievements, job and life changes. Please send us
an email
that includes your full name, year of graduation, and current
professional information. Please also consider letting us know
about your upcoming events and exhibitions so that we may
showcase these in our monthly Department newsletter This Month in the Arts.
