Art Faculty & Staff

Sven Anderson

Associate Professor, Digital Art

Fine Arts Ctr 309
Tel: (607) 437-1758
Sven.Anderson@oneonta.edu

Sven Anderson received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1985 and his BFA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1983.

He studied printmaking with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris France.

Sven Anderson is from Long Beach, California. His interests include printmaking, woodworking, and digital art. His work can be found in many collections in the United States and Europe.

He has been teaching Digital Art at SUNY Oneonta since 1997 and has sponsored numerous faculty/student grants and independent studies.

David Kenny

Adjunct Instructor, and Instructional Support Technician
Serigraphy

Fine Arts Ctr 223A
Tel: (607) 436-3515
Email David Kenny

David Kenny is a digital artist with extensive experience in cinematography, and in the community teaching all aspects of digital art. He has particular expertise in 3D Printing, Vector Graphics, Design, Photography, and Videography. He received his BA from SUNY Oneonta.

Katherine Spitzhoff

Associate Professor, Graphic Design

Fine Arts Ctr 306
Tel: (607) 436-2316
Katherine.Spitzhoff@oneonta.edu

Katherine Spitzhoff received an MS in Information Design and Technology from SUNY Polytechnic Institute, an MFA from Brooklyn College and a BFA from Saint John’s University. She worked in various areas of the Graphic Design field in New York City before joining the faculty at SUNY Oneonta.

Her design work includes event promotion, exhibition graphics, information design, corporate identity, and packaging. For 12 years she worked in the Design Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of Katherine's current clients are cultural organizations and non-profits. Her design studio is in Cherry Valley, NY.

Jian Cui

Associate Professor, 3D Animation, Video, Foundations

Fine Arts Ctr 303
Tel: (607) 436-2987
Jian.Cui@oneonta.edu

Jian Cui received his MFA in New Media from the Pennsylvania State University, PA, and his MA in Computer Art from Savannah College of Art and Design, GA. He received a BFA in Sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. China.

Jian Cui's monumental sculptures are seen as landmarks in China, and his drawings, watercolor paintings, and Chinese paintings have been published in several books. His recently published 3D modeling and animation works have been widely used as instructional examples by schools throughout the United States.

Jian Cui's works are dealing with the internal and external conflicts between an individual and the environment. He is interested in integrating traditional 2D and 3D arts with contemporary digital media. He sees “new” media as a smooth continuation of traditional media.

Rhea Nowak

Professor, Foundations & Printmaking

SUNY Oneonta 2020 Scholar of the Year

Fine Arts Ctr 310
Tel: (607) 436-2827
rhea.nowak@oneonta.edu

Rhea Nowak's portfolio

Rhea Nowak received her MFA from the University of Connecticut in Printmaking and Drawing, and a Master Printer Certificate from Il Bisonte an international school of printmaking in Florence Italy. She received her BA from Bennington College in Printmaking and Painting. Her prints, drawings, and unique books have been exhibited in juried and solo shows in both the U.S. and Europe including Italy, Germany, and Bulgaria.

Her work involves ideas of continuity, chance, and change, and draws from such sources as Buddhist philosophy, musical composition, and current scientific theories.

"Science tells us we are not made of particles at all, but patterns of probabilities of interconnections."

Thomás Sakoulas

Professor, Sculpture & Digital Art
Fine Arts Ctr 305
Tel: (607) 436-2687
thomas.sakoulas@oneonta.edu

Thomas Sakoulas' portfolio

Thomás Sakoulas received his MFA, from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Rinehart School of Sculpture in 1994, and his BFA with Honors from Florida International University in 1992.

Thomás Sakoulas is a Minimalist artist deeply influenced by the art of his native Greece. His artwork embraces physical and virtual space in a variety of media, ranging from stone carving and metal fabrication to digital media, 3D modeling, CAD/CAM, video, and web/UI design.

Sakoulas' use of stone, metal, drawing, and digital media reflects his interest and investigation of elemental geometry, ancient Greek Art, and the transformation of visual signs as they become fragmented and detached from their original context.

His artwork has been exhibited nationally and is featured in collections in Florida, Maryland, and New York. He is the author of Ancient Greece.

Ruben Salinas

Assistant Professor, Illustration

Fine Arts Ctr 308
Tel: (607) 436-2305
Ruben.Salinas@oneonta.edu

Artist's Website

Ruben Salinas received his MFA from Stephen F Austin State University, and his BA in Communications from Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey, Mexico.

Ruben’s work includes book and poster illustrations, editorial illustration, storyboards for TV commercials, and fashion illustration. Clients include: McCann Erickson Advertising, Ogilvy and Mather, Rives Carlberg Advertising, and Ultra magazine, among others.

Ruben is the author of the book The Spirit of Gesture–a practical drawing guide for animation, illustration, and concept design students and enthusiasts. His paintings have been exhibited in the USA and Japan. His work with digital prints explore the vast possibilities of black and white image making through regular and large format Giclee printing.

Yolanda Sharpe

Professor, Painting & Drawing

Fine Arts Ctr 307
Tel: (607) 436-3327
Yolanda.Sharpe@oneonta.edu

Yolanda Sharpe received her Master in Fine Arts from Wayne State University, and her BFA in Painting and Printmaking, as well as BA in Art History from Michigan State. Her art has been exhibited internationally. Ms. Sharpe is a Fulbright Scholar for 2010-2011, and taught and exhibited in Russia’s Siberian city, Krasnoyarsk. She has received the Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence.

Her work examines the relationships between the physicality of paint, wood constructions, and color structures of space. Each painting represents a massive and substantial permanence that is both solid and diaphanous. Surfaces appear to crumble within long passages of time. Some of the encaustic paintings capture Detroit’s beauty, decay, and re-ruralization.

Alissa Walls

Assistant Professor
Art History

Fine Arts Ctr 304
Tel: (607) 436-2714
Email Alissa Walls

Alissa Walls is a multidisciplinary artist and art historian whose creative and scholarly work engages the natural and physical sciences, critical social issues, and the market society in which she lives.

Conceptually, drawing lies at the heart of her work, but Walls has historically employed a range of media—collage, ceramics, sculpture, textiles, lithography, encaustic, multimedia installation, projection, video, and photography. Her practice is research-dense and process-oriented and relies heavily on repetition and accumulation. Physical practices—from walking and running to yoga, meditation, and breathwork—comprise a critical component of her work.

Walls has published in exhibition catalogues and such peer-reviewed journals as American Art. She has curated the exhibition Mark Dion: Process and Inquiry at the University of Arkansas and given numerous talks at private and public venues, including The Explorer’s Club. She has presented her research at the annual meetings of the College Art Association, the Southeastern College Art Conference, the American Studies Association, the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, and the American Society for Environmental History.

Walls holds an MFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Time-Based Art from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (2021), a PhD in Art History from The Pennsylvania State University (2009), an MA in American Studies from Penn State Harrisburg (2002), and a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Washington and Lee University (1997).

Andy Deck

Assistant Professor
UX/UI Design and Emerging Technologies

Fine Arts
Tel: (607) 436-2344
Andy.Deck@oneonta.edu

Andy Deck received his MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1993, and, in 1996, a Certificat d’Études Specialisée du Troisième Degré, from the École National Supériure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris with specialization in Conception et Réalization d’Images par L’Informatique.

Deck is an artist specializing in Net Art, interactive media, and related prints and installations. His software and digital media offer critical and ironic perspectives on contemporary media and technoculture. He has exhibited internationally and has received various commissions. His work is held in several collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has appeared in numerous art historical surveys.

He has produced printed calendars annually for four decades and is a co-founder of the environmental arts collective Transnational Temps, which advances Earth Art for the 21st Century.^TM

Mark Hodge

Lecturer
Art History

Email Mark Hodge

Mark Hodge received his Ph.D. in Art History with a certificate in Curatorial Studies from the University of Florida in 2021. His research interests include the art of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and the perception and reception of that art in later periods.

His dissertation is entitled “Dialectical Semblance: Blank Portraiture on Third- And Fourth-Century Roman Sarcophagi.” It examines the widespread utilization of sarcophagi featuring blank portraits (sometimes called “unfinished portraits”) within the later Roman empire. It aligns the emergence of these blank portraits with the culmination of trends in both material production and funerary representation that developed in Roman society up to the third century.

 

Ashley Norwood Cooper

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Design

Fine Arts Ctr 316
Tel: (607) 436-3907
Email Ashley Cooper

Ashley Norwood Cooper received her MFA in Painting from Indiana University in 2000. She received a B.A. From the University of Georgia in 1995.

Ms. Cooper’s paintings explore contemporary middle-class life. She is interested in the materiality of paint and the domestic narrative. She has exhibited in group and solo shows in NYC and around the country. She lives and has her painting studio in Cooperstown, NY.

Luke Dougherty

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Drawing

Fine Arts Ctr 316
Tel: (607) 436-3907
Email Luke Dougherty

Luke Dougherty received his MFA from Buffalo State University. He teaches Drawing I and Drawing II.

 

Dr. Margaret Dikovitskaya

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Art History

Fine Arts Ctr 222
Tel: (607) 436-3717
Email Margaret Dikovitskaya

A graduate of Columbia University (M.Ed., M.Phil., Ph.D.), Margaret Dikovitskaya wrote the doctoral dissertation on the rise of Visual Culture Studies in the United States. Her first book, Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn, was published by The MIT Press (2005, 2006) and Paideia (2019).

Dr. Dikovitskaya is a recipient of The John W. Kluge Scholarship at the Library of Congress (Washington, DC), The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowship (University of Toronto, Canada), The Izaak Walton Killam Fellowship (University of British Columbia, Canada), The Wolfsonian-FIU Visiting Scholarship (Miami), The Collegium Budapest Scholarship (Hungary, EU), and The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Scholarship (Scotland, UK). She has contributed chapters and essays to The Handbook of Visual Culture (Berg, 2011), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (OUP, 2014), and Constructing Race on the Borders of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2021), and scholarly journals.

Most recently, she was the Keynote Speaker at Future of Visual Studies Roundtable (2021 International Visual Sociology Association Conference, London, UK). Dr. Dikovitskaya held research and teaching appointments in North America, European Union, and Japan. She organized and directed three summer institutes in Visual Culture for faculty and museum professionals at the Central European University, Open Society Foundation (EU). As a Subject Matter Expert, she has designed and taught online courses in Art History since 2017.

Leah McDonald

Adjunct Instructor

Fine Arts Ctr 222
Tel: (607) 436-3717

Chris Pettingill

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Ceramics

Fine Arts Ctr 236C
Tel: (607) 436-3735
Email Chris Pettingill

Chris Pettingill's portfolio

Chris Pettingill received his MFA in Ceramic Art from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in 1992, and his BFA degree with honors at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. His introduction to clay began in 1981 while attending Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, and also studied at the University of The Arts, in Philadelphia.

He now lives and works as a potter and ceramic sculptor along the banks of the Susquehanna River in Afton, NY. His work is in use and in private collections across the United States and around the world.

 

Colleen O’Hara

Adjunct Lecturer

Email Colleen O'Hara

Colleen O’Hara received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the State University Of New York at New Paltz in 2016. In 2013 she received her BFA in Painting from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.

O’Hara’s work explores process and material, questioning our understanding of physical space. Recording reactions and responses to the physical world, she creates an experience of space that situates meaning in a place where it is gradually revealed, but never fully understood. In her paintings, large marks complement areas of intricate detail, spaces where micro and macro perspectives are referenced. Pairing these contrasting marks allows the work to oscillate between the intimate and the immeasurable.

Colleen’s paintings have been shown in various exhibitions throughout the Northeast.

Hogan-Cero Rhianna

Adjunct Instructor

Fine Arts Ctr 222
Tel: (607) 436-3717

 

Madeline Silber

Adjunct Associate Professor
Drawing

Fine Arts Ctr 223A
Tel: (607) 436-3515
Email Madeline Silber

Madeline Silber received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art, and her BA in Painting and Literature from Sarah Lawrence College.

She has exhibited her paintings nationally and internationally. In her work, she attempts to depict the complex subtleties of connection and separation in our contemporary relationships.

She lives in Oneonta since moving upstate from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She teaches Drawing I and II at SUNY Oneonta, as well as designing brand identities for regional small businesses.

 

Carrie Mae Smith

Adjunct Instructor, 3D Design

Fine Arts Ctr 316
Tel: (607) 436-3907
Email Carrie Mae Smith • Carrie Mae Smith's portfolio

Carrie Mae Smith completed an MFA in Sculpture at the University of Delaware and a Four Year Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2005.

Her work investigates marginalized histories, utilitarian forms, and concerns of equity and sustainability. She is interested in traditional construction techniques and fine craftsmanship whether working with wood, steel, panty hose, cheese-puffs or oil paint.

Smith has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, is a recipient of artist grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation. She has been awarded Artist Residencies at Winterthur Museum and Gardens, RAIR in North East Philadelphia and the Vermont Studio Center.

Janet Wentworth

Adjunct Associate Professor, Drawing & Figure Drawing

Fine Arts Ctr 316
Tel: (607) 436-3907
Email Janet Wentworth • Janet Wentworth's portfolio

Janet Wentworth received her MFA in painting from Brooklyn College and BFA in illustration from Parsons School of Design. She completed postgraduate study at the National Academy School of Fine Art and the Art Student’s League of New York, and studied art in France and Italy supported by foundation grants.

Her intention in art has always rested upon engagement with the human figure, it’s psychological and emotional resonance, and formal concerns emphasizing the interplay of light and shadow on form.

Her early art career included book illustration for HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Co. among others. Her figure paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally, including the First Street Gallery and the National Academy Museum in New York City, The Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio, and the Copley Society in Boston. Her artwork has received numerous awards, including those from the National Academy of Art, Academic Artists Association, Pastel Society of America, and Society of Illustrators.