Jan. 7, 2021
Housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, The Art School at DePaul emphasizes research and conceptual thinking, creative problem solving, the development of specific skills, and the historical functions of art. Formerly the Department of Art, Media and Design, the school aims to impart diverse methods, skills and challenges to students to provide a foundation for the understanding of visual culture historically, as well as in contemporary times.
In addition to maintaining an attentive and close professional relationship with their students, faculty in the school consistently exhibit and publish in regional, national and international venues. Get to know the school's faculty and staff, and view a sample of their artwork via the interactive gallery below.
Gagik Aroutiunian, associate professor
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"Legacy," by Gagik Aroutiunian.
Armenian-born Gagik Aroutiunian is an associate professor at The Art School. He holds a BA in painting, studio specialist program, from the University of Toronto; and an MFA in sculpture from Towson University, Baltimore.
Aroutiunian grew up in the former Soviet republic and has lived and worked in Lithuania, Poland, Italy and Canada, and for the last 20 years has resided in the United States. Aroutiunian's work is in many private and museum collections in England, Germany, Poland, Canada and the U.S.
Paola Cabal, adjunct faculty member
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"What Means Light," by Paola Cabal
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Paola Cabal has lived in Chicago since 2001 and is an adjunct faculty member at The Art School. A site-specific
installation artist, Cabal is best known for her rigorous observational studies of daylight over time-- movements the artist photographs on site, then paints directly into spaces
trompe l’oeil style using spray paint.
As an artist and educator, Cabal is interested in the intersection between physics and perception.
Steven Carrelli, adjunct faculty member
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"Profane Mimesis II," by Steven Carrelli
Steven Carrelli is an adjunct faculty member in The Art Schoo. He received a BA in studio art from Wheaton College, and an MFA in Painting from Northwestern University. As a 1995-96 Fulbright scholar, he studied egg tempera painting in Florence, Italy. He has returned to Italy on many occasions to teach and work.
Carrelli's paintings and drawings employ close observation, the poetic possibilities of the commonplace and the contemplative nature of craft to explore themes related to permanence, temporality, ambition and vulnerability.
"Occupier," by Jeff Carter
Jeff Carter is a multimedia artist and a professor of Art, Media in The Art School. Carter earned his BFA at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Carter has exhibited his work in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Renaissance Society, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the Hyde Park Art Center.
JaNae Contag, adjunct faculty member
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"Nᴁ Viewing Room," by JaNae Contag
A Kansas City native, JaNae Contag teaches courses in digital and film photography and design at The Art School. She received her MFA in Visual Art from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art at Washington University in St. Louis and her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio.
Contag's art practice spans photography, video, performance, sound, drawing, and interactive installation. Her work deals with American aspirational lifestyles and she focuses on idiosyncratic places in which tourism and elitism co-exist.
Elizabeth Curtis, adjunct faculty member
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"Haleiwa Beach Road," by Betsy Curtis
Elizabeth "Betsy" Curtis is an adjunct faculty member at The Art School. She is a photographer whose work explores the tension between the seemingly eternal and temporal elements of the photographic moment. She is interested in themes of identity, place, and staging.
Winters received her MFA from the University of Hawaii
at Manoa and completed an Orvis Artist Residency at the Honolulu Museum of Art.
"Zona San Samuele," by Tom Denlinger
Born in Los Angeles, Tom Denlinger teaches in The Art School at DePaul, as well as in Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an MFA degree from SAIC, and a bachelor's degree from California State University East Bay.
Denlinger has had solo exhibitions in New York, Rome, Venice, and Chicago, as well as exhibitions in Berlin; Seoul; Turin; Madrid; Hamburg; Frankfurt; and Vaishali, India. Forthcoming his work can be seen in a group exhibition, Trees Give Us Life, opening in March 2021 at the Arsenale Nord in Venice, Italy.
Mary Jane Duffy, adjunct faculty member
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"Distortion 10 (Woman)," by Mary Jane Duffy
Mary Jane Duffy is an adjunct faculty member at The Art School and artist interested in the ways technology is molding how we experience the world.
Her paintings and drawings investigate this by revealing the times when the artifice of technology is made clearly visible- when TV pictures turn to static and snow, when surveillance photographs show text that has been crossed out, creating black boxes on the surface or the cable signal goes bad and images are turned to abstract colored tiles.
Brother Mark Elder, C.M., term faculty member
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"The Story of the 'Little School Under the L' Under the L," by Brother Mark Elder, C.M.
Brother Mark Elder, C.M., is a term faculty member and internship director at The Art School. He holds two postgraduate degrees, both in painting, but started out with a physical education degree from his alma mater, DePaul University.
Even though he enjoyed coaching and teaching at the elementary and high school levels, Brother Mark felt the Spirit called him to higher work through the visual arts, which is why he started Art School at 35 years of age. Today Brother Mark has several public murals to his credit.
"Excavation," by Matthew Girson
Matthew Girson is a professor at The Art School. He has exhibited his artworks locally, nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Four Flags (Chicago Style, Chicago and Kunsthal Ghent, Belgium), This Scrim Became One (Aspect Ratio Projects, Chicago), and The Painter's Other Library (Chicago Cultural Center). Additionally, the Murmurs of Democracy are an ongoing series of interactive performances that explore the successes and failures of our democratic republic.
He teaches courses in painting, drawing and seminars on contemporary art for The Art School, The Honors Program and the First Year Program. His new seminar for the First Year Program, "The Use and Abuse of Public Monuments," provides students with opportunities to explore how monuments operate artistically, historically and politically.
"The City in the City," by Steve Harp
Steve Harp is an associate professor of media art in The Art School, where he teaches both studio classes and seminars on photography, contemporary art, cultural
studies and literature.
Harp works in creating and sequencing images, and presenting them in the form of photographs, videos and artist's books. In his artwork he draws connections between the visual world and the world of ideas as presented in literary, historical, philosophical, and psychoanalytic texts. He approaches photography as a detective process revolving around considerations of history, place, ephemerality, transience and liminality.
Elisabeth Hogeman, adjunct faculty member
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"Logistical Challenges of a Full Scale Reconstruction," by Elisabeth Hogeman
Elisabeth Hogeman is an adjunct faculty member at DePaul and a visual artist working in video and photography to explore the relationship between architectural and psychological space. She received her MFA in visual arts from the University of Chicago, and her BA in studio art and English
literature from the University of Virginia.
In her propositional domestic tableaux she repetitively incorporates elements in multiple configurations in an effort to disorient figure/ground relationships. A geometry emerges from the process of fragmenting, enlarging, reprinting, and digitally stacking, addressing the act of looking as a performative and artificial gesture.
Laura Kina, professor and Vincent de Paul Professor
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"UfushuGajumaru," by Laura Kina
Laura Kina is a professor and Vincent de Paul Professor at The Art School, and director of Critical Ethnic Studies at DePaul. Contemporary Asian American art; Okinawan, mixed race, and critical ethnic studies; and feminist/queer theory form the nexus of her intersectional art and scholarship.
Kina has exhibited at India Habitat Centre and India International Centre, Nehuru Art Centre, Okinawa Prefectural Art Museum, Chicago Cultural Center, Japanese American National Museum, Rose Art Museum, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Spertus Museum, and Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
Margaret Lanterman, adjunct faculty member
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"Mind Games-Croquet Awakening," by Margaret Lanterman
Margaret Lanterman is an adjunct faculty member in The Art School. Her art stems from the interaction between actual nature and human nature, and the change that is affected upon each.
Her direction has been influenced by extensive research and work in the field of animal behavior, historical research into philosophies such as animism and the observation of the natural world around her.
"Chromatic Adaptations," by Jessica Larva
Jessica Larva is an associate professor in The Art School and contemporary artist whose work explores phenomena of visual perception. She earned her BFA and MFA in new media art at Ohio State University.
Her work is part of DePaul's Holtschneider Performance Center collection and private collections. Larva has exhibited across the country, including notable exhibitions such as her solo shows Leeward at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas and Fluid Horizons at Ohio Dominican University.
Margaret Leininger, adjunct faculty member
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"Mass Effort," by Margaret Leininger
As an adjunct faculty member in The Art School, Maggie Leininger aims to connect students to the rich and varied permaculture of the Chicago art community.
Previously, Leininger served as director of the International Honor Quilt at the University of Louisville. A collection of over 500 quilts, the International Honor Quilt was a community-engaged companion work to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. In addition to designing an award-winning exhibition of the collection, Leininger created numerous public programs and workshops with artists such as Suzanne Lacy.
Zack Ostrowski, associate professor
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"Restless Desperation," by Zack Ostrowski
Zack Ostrowski, also known as Beverly Fresh, is an associate professor and area head of graphic art at DePaul. He is a song-and-dance man from the rural Midwestern United States. He has performed and exhibited across the country and abroad. He runs a record label based in Detroit and is co-founder of the Archive of Midwestern Culture and the Wild American Dogs.
He holds a master’s
degree in fine arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he received the Daimler AG
Emerging Artist Award.
Mary Ann Papanek-Miller, professor and director
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Preparing for winter, "Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness," 2. by Mary Ann Papanek-Miller
Mary Ann Papanek-Miller is a professor and the director of The Art School. She has an MFA in art from the University of Houston, Texas. She utilizes a mixed media drawing/collage vocabulary to create and construct visual layers in her work that are informed by urban spaces and rural landscapes. She collects and draws from open access toys and related objects. Toy images in her works are often storytellers and she seasons these images with attributes of worry, vulnerability and a bit of humor.
Recent juried exhibitions that included her work: "Mythos" Target Gallery/Torpedo Factory - Alexandria, Va., "Beyond Despair" National Humanities Center - Research Triangle, N.C., and "Preparing For Winter" Solo Exhibition - Jean Albano Gallery in Chicago.
Mildred Santiago, senior administrative assistant
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"Perla y Oro," by Mildred Santiago
Mildred Santiago is the senior administrative assistant in The Art School. She completed her BFA in fashion design at Savannah College of Art and Design
and has expanded her design skills into textile and metal jewelry. Her work is mainly inspired by harmonizing contrasting ideas to create wearable objects.
In addition to her role at DePaul, she also collaborates as a studio monitor in the Metals Department at LillStreet Art Center.
Jordan Schulman, adjunct faculty member
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"Meteor Crater," by Jordan Schulman
Jordan Schulman is an adunct faculty member in The Art School and an artist/photographer. His personal work is comprised of photographic portraits, social documentary, animated GIFS and web-based artworks. He is well versed in all aspects of both analog- and digitally-based image making.
He is also the associate editor of "Esthetic Lens Magazine," an online arts and culture publication dedicated to showcasing creative excellence in all mediums.
Bibiana Suárez, professor and Vincent de Paul Professor
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"La Fajona, The Hard Worker," by Bibiana Suárez
Bibiana Suárez is a professor of art and Vincent de Paul Professor in The Art School. Suárez was born and raised in Puerto Rico but has resided in Chicago since 1980.
She has a BFA and an MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Suárez has exhibited in the United States as well as in Puerto Rico and Mexico.
"Complicit," by Joe Turner
Joseph W. Turner is an adjunct faculty member in The Art School at DePaul. He holds a BFA in painting from The Ohio University and an MFA in painting from Northern Illinois University.
Turner has been an instructor of art at the college level since 2000 and is a life-long practicing artist.
Aaron Vague, adjunct faculty member
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"Untitled," by Aaron Vague
A. P. Vague is an adjunct faculty member and Chicago artist whose work focuses on long-distance collaboration and research. Vague has a BA in studio art and art history from Wichita State University, and an MFA in art from the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University.
Combining various forms of media, Vague's artistic practice utilizes sound, photography, video, and drawing. By using digital effects and manipulation, Vague’s work seeks to transform our belief and faith in images.
Guillermo Vásquez de Velasco, dean and professor
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"Rotterdam," by Guillermo Vásquez de Velasco
Guillermo Vásquez de Velasco is dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and a professor in The Art School.
A recipient of multiple awards and recognitions, Vásquez de Velasco has combined professional practice in architecture and urbanism with teaching, scholarship and academic administration into a career that celebrates design thinking, multidisciplinary collaboration. He is a passionate advocate of the critical mission of the liberal arts in the 21st century and its key function in the education of future leaders.
"Cloud Study," by Ellie Wallace
Ellie Wallace has been the studio manager for The Art School at DePaul, formerly the Department of Art, Media and Design, for the past 20 years.
Prior to her role at DePaul she taught painting at Barat College, and has also worked as a carpenter and art-rigger. She has exhibited in the United States, Canada, Finland and Germany.
"McGaw Hall Building, 1963-2016 by architect Helmut Bartsch," by Chi Jang Yin
Chi Jang Yin is the DePaul Presidential Fellow 2020-21, a documentary filmmaker, and an associate professor and the area head of photography and media art at The Art School.
Yin intertwines her teaching, research and service with a passion for equity. Her teaching and research examine the cultural foundations of nuclear power and the U.S. gun violence, with a particular focus on the use and misuse of media to alternately shape bias and understanding.
Mark Zlotkowski, adjunct faculty member
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"Around the Corner," by Mark Zlotkowski
Mark Zlotkowski is an adjunct faculty member in The Art School and a Chicago-based artist, exhibiting at galleries and museums in both the United States and internationally. He has taught at DePaul for more than 20 years.
His paintings are a fusion of realism, abstraction and symbolism. He is currently represented at The 33 Contemporary Gallery in The Zhou B. Center in Chicago.