Faculty

Melina Ausikaitis is a multidisciplinary artist and musician from Chicago. She has exhibited and performed all over the country and traveled the world playing in her band Joan of Arc. She is as much an inventor/historian as an artist. Check out her drawings, videos, sculptures, garments and Halloween costumes at melinaausikaitis.com

Kayce is an artist educator, designer and mom. She studied Studio Art (and music, too!) at Florida State University, and earned her MFA from Memphis College of Art in Tennessee. Her practice is varied, working across media and collaborating with artists, writers, musicians, and community members to explore personal stories, histories, places, and art experience outside of institutional spaces. Kayce has over 15 years experience as an arts and design educator and is honored to spend her days with the amazing young people at The Chicago High School for the Arts! In all creative pursuits – as teacher, collaborator, maker – Kayce sees art as a place to inspire curiosity and critical literacy.

Whitney Bradshaw is an artist, activist, educator, curator, and former social worker. Bradshaw has been the head of the visual art conservatory at ChiArts since the fall of 2012. Bradshaw’s work has been exhibited widely including solo shows at the DePaul Art Museum (Chicago), The Lubeznik Center for the Arts (Michigan City, Indiana), The Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University, the Wave Pool Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center (Cincinnati), The Show Gallery (St Paul) and the Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago). Additionally, her work was curated into the Dock6 Design + Art 13, 2020 (Chicago), Female in Focus 2020 at the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, Colorado), and the Terrain Biennial 2020 (Chicago). She has also shown work at Box 13 Artspace (Houston), James Kearney Campus Gallery at New Jersey State (Trenton), Iceberg Projects (Chicago), Brooks Stevens Gallery at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (Milwaukee), Gallery 400 at University of Illinois Chicago and the Midway Art Fair (Chicago). Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the DePaul Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern School of Law, the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection (Cincinnati), and numerous other private collections. Additionally, her work has been published and/or reviewed in the New York Times, Columbia College’s 6×6 series, Time Out New York, New City, the MCA Chicago catalog for The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music 1965-Now, Esthetic Lens Magazine, the LA Times, The Calodian Record (Vermont), the Chicago Tribune, and WTTW’s Chicago Tonight did a segment on Bradshaw’s work in 2018.

Megan Kalmes is an artist and educator living and working in Chicago. Megan works traditionally with oil on canvas. Her paintings are figurative and often depict a feminine protagonist entranced within her own psyche – a sort of psychological landscape. Megan loves art history and embraces the fundamentals of painting and drawing. She believes that figuration can be more than a reflection of the self or of society; transcending beyond mere representation to a place of greater sensitivity and call upon the nature of being. The act of self-reviewing is present in Megan’s personal work and in her teaching. Her painting practice informs her communication with students providing enrichment and development from a place of emotional investment. Megan has taught with the Early College Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. Megan also has experience with after-school programming working with vulnerable and at-risk youth groups. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Minor in Art History from Clarke University. Megan also holds Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio and an MFA in Painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Annie Leue is a graphic designer, writer, art director, and educator living in Chicago, IL. She’s most interested in the crossroads among language, design, and civic engagement as a means to drive social change. annieleue.com

Chris Lin is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, working in media including films, books, puppetry, music, and installation. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, he moved to British Columbia, Canada and received his BFA with honor from University of Victoria in 2005. After relocating to Chicago, Mr. Lin pursued an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated in 2008. His exhibition history includes Contemporary Art Workshop, Eel Space, and OP Shop in Chicago, Verge Art Fair in New York, Deluge Contemporary Art and 50/50 Arts Collective in Victoria, BC, and Atlantic Centre for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL. His visual art and short stories has been published in Fiction At Work and Balliwik. Mr. Lin is the co-founder and collaborative director at Good Stuff House, a performance and publishing art collaborative, and the founding member and ukulele player of the folk-thrash-hop duo Hannis Pannis.
abalonemoney.com

Kera MacKenzie is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in film, video, live broadcast and installation. Her works have explored radical subjectivities, the mechanisms of empathy, suspense, liveness, and control. She has screened and exhibited at spaces including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives and UnionDocs (New York City), the MassArt Film Society (Boston), Microlights (Milwaukee), Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, La lumière collective (Montreal), Cellular Cinema (Minneapolis), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Nightingale, and Chicago Underground Film Festival (all Chicago). Kera has been an artist in residence at The Luminary (St. Louis), ACRE (Wisconsin), Culturia (Berlin), and most recently at Signal Culture (Owego, NY). She received her MFA in Moving Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2013. Additionally, Kera is a Founding Co-Director of ACRE TV, an artist-made live-streaming television network (ACRETV.org), and an educator.

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

BFA, 2011, School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL; MFA, 2016, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. Exhibitions: NURTUREart Gallery, NYC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Parson Paris Gallery, Paris; VideoFag, Toronto; Defibrillator, Chicago; Enemy, Chicago

Susannah Papish is a Chicago-based artist and curator who earned a MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2002) and a BA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1995). Papish is Director of boundary, a contemporary visual arts project space begun in 2017, located in her garage. Her work has been exhibited at many Chicago-based spaces including solo shows at Skestos Gabriele Gallery and the Beverly Arts Center. She has been a recipient of the 3Arts Make a Wave grant, Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council grants. She has taught at several colleges and universities in the Chicago area. boundary was included in the Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago 2.0 in 2020. Papish is currently a member of The Center Program 2021 cohort at The Hyde Park Art Center. susannahpapish.us

Shaqui Reed is a Chicago-based artist and designer. Reed studied fine art at the Chicago High School for the Arts and received her BFA in Fashion Design in 2018 from Columbia College Chicago. Reed is currently studying at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, where she will receive her Master’s in Design(2022). Reed has exhibited in numerous galleries throughout Chicago, including shows at The Hyde Park Art Center, SpringHill Suites, The Harris Theater, The Chicago Cultural Center, Columbia College Chicago, and the School of the Art Institute Chicago. Her work has won awards through both the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and All-City Art exhibitions. In 2016, Reed took part in a group exhibition with Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design, also known as SOFA art exhibition in a show titled, “Four years later.” Recent exhibitions include the School for the Art Institute Chicago (2021) and Homewood Arts Council (2021). shaquireed.com

Anastasia Sitnikova has worked at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Harper College (Palatine, Illinois). In her artistic practice, Anastasia focuses on sculpture and interactive installations. Her art is largely driven by the curiosity about human nature and social relations as a representation of the inner self and the outer world, subconscious and conscious, respectively. Anastasia holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from UIC. Her work has been exhibited at educational institutions, non-profit and commercial galleries in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Anastasia is Fall 2021 Artist in Residence at the International Museum of Surgical Science (IMSS), Chicago. anastasiasitnikova.com