Faculty

Originally from New York, Rebecca Eve Baruc has called Chicago home since 2015. Rebecca is an arts producer, curator, educator and visual artist based in Chicago with 8+ years experience in delivering impactful and transformative programming to diverse audiences. She received her BFA in American Studies and minored in Studio Art from Skidmore College, where she also produced the National College Comedy Festival. Other art schools of study include the Art Students League of New York, The Glasgow School of Art, and The Chicago Mosaic School. Her other professional experiences span project managing, producing and curating with David Wallace Haskins Studio,The Den Theatre, Uncommon Ground, Haymarket Books, Bruce Mau’s Massive Change Network, and CPS Department of Arts Education. Rebecca is passionate about settings that cultivate cultures of liberation, take creative risks, and archive contemporary American culture; she feels the high school classroom is a perfect place to bring these together with the students. Baruc never read Harry Potter, a fact to which her students said “ok so you’re not a weird Millennial.” Baruc is actually your typical millennial: has lots of plants, a cat, and remembers Blockbuster fondly. www.beccabaruc.com

Eliza Fernand is an artist and educator who works primarily with video, sound, fabric, and clay. After studying sculpture and photography at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan and earning a BFA Sculpture from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Oregon, Eliza led a cross-country career attending over a dozen artist residencies and exhibiting internationally. A new citizen of Chicago, she spent the last eight years in Michigan where she directed and facilitated an artist residency, taught at non-profit organizations, and earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Sierra Nevada University. In artmaking and in teaching, Eliza aims to provoke an acceptance of loving practices outside of the norm, and promote experimentation on all levels. www.elizafernand.com

With a background in educational psychology and art, Patrick believes that the camera has the power to transform the way we understand the world and the people around us. By mixing practices of documentary photography, community organizing, and human development, his goal is to encourage young people in Chicago to be their own storytellers. By engaging youth in these practices, he strives to actualize these intersections through a curriculum that centers young peoples’ insight and imagination. lentzphoto.com

Chris Lin Dao-Heng is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago, working in media including videos, comics, graphic design, puppetry, music, and installation. A major part of his art practice is related to language learning, immigration, humor, and vulnerability. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, he earned his BFA with honor from the University of Victoria in 2005 and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. His visual art, short stories, and comic work have been published by the Chicago Architecture Center, Bailiwick, This Side of West, Fiction At Work, Shampoo, and Levitate. Mr. Lin has taught at ChiArts since 2012 in both the Visual Arts and Creative Writing Conservatories. When he is not creating art and teaching, you can find Mr. Lin building elaborate Lego houses with his son, cooking complicated meals, and rocking out to synth music. abalonemoney.com

Claire Moore is an artist and educator living in Chicago. She uses painting to understand herself and her surroundings, and her work can largely be described as self-portraiture. Claire received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007, and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. She has shown her work at various spaces in Florida, Rhode Island, New York, and Chicago. clairemoorestudio.com

Caitlin Ryan is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker. Her work explores the nuances between comedy and humor, specifically using the vernacular of the uncanny to investigate systems of anthropology. I am interested in small underground (and sometimes temporary) communities to observe perspectives that push the boundaries of what it means to have radical empathy. Ryan received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has most recently shown works at Airlock,Iceberg Projects, Flatlands, Gallery 400, and Hyde Park Art Center. She has also screened works at Onion City Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, ICDOCS,Cosmic Rays,and the Nightingale Cinema.

Frank Vega (b. 1992, Ecuador) is a transdisciplinary artist working with sculpture, painting, and hybrid objects produced from repurposed materials. His practice centers on an archaeological approach to objects that shape our culture and collective knowledge. Different materials, surfaces, and shapes help Vega build objects with unique attributions that coexist creating empowering narratives.

Vega lives and works between Chicago and Ecuador. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), MDW Fair at Mana Contemporary, (Chicago), El Lobi, (Puerto Rico), The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), Koik Contemporary, (Mexico City), and the Krannert Art Museum, (Champaign). Awarded with a Frankenthaler Scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Florence M. House Scholarship and the Helen E. Platt Blake Scholarship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and a Leroy Neiman Fellowship from Ox-Bow School of Art.