Ruby Warner. My practice is grounded in observation, closely studying and understanding what is in front of me. I work primarily from life, focusing on the human figure and portraiture as a means of sustained looking. Portraiture plays a central role in my work, and I often use myself as the subject. This allows for consistent access and creates space for prolonged engagement with the act of looking. Painting the figure becomes both a formal and conceptual practice balancing accuracy, distortion, and painterly decision-making to convey the figure and atmosphere. I am drawn to painting as a sustained and deliberate process that requires attention and focus. Observation is essential to my practice because it keeps the work grounded in lived experience while allowing room for interpretation. Rather than illustrating specific stories, I aim to create images that feel present and immediate, inviting viewers to engage with the figure on a visual and emotional level. Ultimately, my work is concerned with looking, interpreting and how careful observation can shape perception.
Jessica (Jes) Peterson. I live and work as an artist in Lafayette, Indiana. I teach for Purdue University in ceramics, sculpture, and textiles. I am a plant enthusiast (I have 25 house plants), and like to spend the summers outside walking or on my front porch gardening. When I’m not out walking, teaching, or making work, I read and hang out with my spouse. My work is derived from the cliK swallow and their nest clusters. This bird started my fascination with finding small homes of other birds and insects, whether they are still inhabited or abandoned. This also prompted themes such as repetition and renewal in nature.
Michael Behle is the Chair of the Art & Design Department at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis. Behle is an artist, educator, and community organizer based in St. Louis, Missouri. His work has been exhibited extensively at venues including: Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri; Phillips de Pury, New York, New York; Art Resources Transfer, New York, New York; Aqua Art, Miami, Florida; Next Art Fair, Chicago, Illinois; Mitchell Museum (Southern Illinois Biennial) Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Puerto Rico International Art Fair, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Sotheby’s in New York, New York; and The Underground, Stuttgart, Germany, among others. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and his Master of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University. Behle is a fellow of the Vermont Studio Center, and the Community Arts Training Program through the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. In 2012 Behle founded Paul Artspace, a residency program located in St. Louis, Missouri, and in 2014 he co-founded Museum Blue, a project space also located in St. Louis. He has served as an independent curator on numerous projects for both local and national exhibitions. His work has received support in grants and fellowships from the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the Regional Arts Commission, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others. Behle has served as a guest lecturer and visiting professor at several venues and institutions, most recently at Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy and the Birmingham School of Art in the United Kingdom.
Ella Desmond is a multidisciplinary artist, printmaker and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she received her BFA in Printmaking from Louisiana State University in 2013 and her MFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute in 2017. Desmond’s work has been shown most recently in Making Time, an exhibition at the Parsons School of Design, the LICA Art Space (2025) and the public art festival Terrain Biennial: Mycelium Connection in Newburgh (2023). Her studio practice spans traditional and alternative printmaking and artists’ books mediums, performance, video and creative writing. Desmond has led workshops at the Peters Valley School of Craft and MoMAZoZo in New Mexico and she was invited to teach a course on artists books at Marymount Manhattan College in Fall 2025. She has been a staff member at The New School since 2019, where she was a three-time recipient of the Parsons Staff Development Fund. Desmond began teaching at the Parsons School of Design in 2020, where she currently teaches courses in printmaking, artists’ books and illustration.
Hiromi Stringer is a US-based Japanese artist. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of drawing, painting and interdisciplinary in the School of Art at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Stringer received multiple awards/residencies including residency at the 2024 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the 2019-2020 Dedalus Foundation Master of Fine Arts Fellowship, the 2022 Dedalus Foundation Funds for Past fellows and Awardees, the 2019-2020 Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency Program/ Künstlerhaus Bethanien International Studio Program, Berlin, Germany, the 2021 Summer Arts Faculty Residency program at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency, Saugatuck, MI, the 2024 Vermont Studio Center residency, Johnson, VT, and 2026 Virginia Center for Contemporary Art, VA, Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, NYC. Public Art commissions from the City of San Antonio, TX in 2025-2027. A resident of the San Antonio area, her works are in public, corporate and private collections in Japan and the US.
Ella Mahoney is a visual artist, illustrator, and educator, and a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). She holds a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts and an MA in Art Education from Pratt Institute. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on storytelling, often drawing from Wampanoag creation stories and her personal experience of indigeneity and connection to land and water. Through engaging with stories through various mediums such as silk painting, performance, children’s books, and oral storytelling— she offers different avenues to build deeper connections with the meaning and purpose of each story, building on indigenous history and legends for the future.
Working primarily in oil, acrylic, and silk painting, Mahoney’s recent work focuses on large-scale silk installations that evoke the movement, memory, and atmosphere of north east coastal environments— and more specifically, Aquinnah. She has illustrated children’s books for the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project and collaborated with institutions such as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Long Island Children’s Museum, and MassArt, exhibiting in gallery and museum settings and creating immersive works in dialogue with performance and place.www.jasonackman.org
Recent Comments