Fine and Performing Arts Center || Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery

MVCC Art Faculty

The following listing shows the range of subjects, styles and media being practiced by members of Moraine Valley Community College's Art Faculty. Each year, faculty members present new work to their students and colleagues, the local community, and wider arts community in an exhibition held in the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery.

If you would like more information about any of the featured artists please contact Jennifer Kiekeben, Art Gallery Coordinator, at 708-608-4231 or kiekebenj@morainevalley.edu.

Nikki Anderson

I explore the nuances of the feminine experience from reflections of childhood and adolescence. My work addresses private spaces such as bedrooms, dressing rooms and bathrooms because the objects within those spaces become metaphors for identity. The objects have a whimsical quality that suggests imagery related to fairytales and fantasies.
Website: http://www.nikkireneeanderson.com

Jesse Avina
By crafting depictions of war via models I become invested with authority over familiar scenes of destruction and carnage. As the creator I am elevated beyond the status of mere consumer. By displaying these miniature landscapes as either photographs or video, I adopt the role of producer� However, unlike media conglomerates, these re-contextualized scenes are aware of their artificiality and register their existence in fantasy.
Website: http://jesseavina.com/

Amy Babinec
Through the Reenactment paintings, I recover the physical and emotional environment of a remembered place. I make paintings through a process of amnesia and recovery of memory. As a metaphor for this process, I work with salvaged discarded paintings, which have provided me an element of chance and a springboard into pictorial invention.
Website: www.amybabinec.com

Pamela Bagdzinski
Animals and theatrical motifs allow me to explore different aspects of human relationships in my work with both gravity and levity.

Jamie Callahan
As a photographer, I pride myself on exposing the beauty of the everyday world around us. It is unfortunate that in our fast paced society, we are usually too busy to take the time to see what often lies just beyond the surface. Every day many of us walk or drive past the same things as we follow our routine, never stopping to see past the blinding monotony.
Website: www.jamiecallahan.com

Joel DeGrand
I look for and try to capture the physiological and psychological nuances of my subjects and the way they feel in their clothing�By documenting people in uniform I hope to bring a better understanding of the values and meaning of what people wear.
Website: http://degrand.com

Tyler Hewitt
My current work incorporates alternative process photographic printing, shooting with toy cameras, collage, and screenprinting.
Website: www.lastlightbender.blogspot.com

Trudy Kooy
Trudy holds a BA in Art from Trinity Christian College, a Masters degree in Art Education from Western Washington University in Washington State and an A.A.S degree in Computer Graphics � Digital Art/Design from Moraine Valley Community College. Her current interest is photography and digital manipulation that explores personality, identity, and memory. She is currently teaching courses in Art Appreciation and Art History at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL.

Jeff Krantz
My work has always been about personal vocational discernment, often veiled in quirky, oddball narratives. The unpredictable and violently reflexive dialogue between form and content that begets one of my paintings necessarily involves me as both the creator and the created who is revealed to varying measure in this process to himself.

Erik La Gattuta
I tell stories, with pictures, about people trying to be human while the world tries to make them into something else.

Irene McCauley
Digital photography provides the grist for my artistic mill. Not being happy with the constraint of the frame, I stitch together continuous tone points of light into more expansive landscapes.

Tom McDonald
My art is a reflection of my life�s journey, not just a physical journey but an intellectual, emotional and spiritual journey. A life-long trek of trying to understand where I am from, where I am going and what my role is in our diverse modern society.

Chris Matusek
My work explores topics that are related to gender, identity, sexual politics, and duality of experience. The jumping off point for my exploration begins with the ideas of pin-up posters, burlesque, peepshow, optical toys, and play. I utilize the power and flexibility of technology to explore these concepts, with a particular interest in the intimacy and immersive quality of mobile computing, digital video, and installation.
Website: http://www.chrismatusek.com

Susannah Papish
Latent ideas that compel me to make these images reflect a fragmented sub consciousness related to memory. The development and erosion of form and surface are part of the process I seek in each painting.

Lynn Peters
Models and molds can be made; clay is modeled and carved to make the final sculpture. These sculptures are as realistic as possible, narrative and political, inspired by Rodin's terra cottas, Haniwa figures, Tang dynasty ware, Renaissance Urbino pottery.
Website: http://www.lynnpetersart.com

Kathleen Schonauer
Through collage, by using images of the world and the living, I try to create new and different realities that are at once familiar and strange. It is through exploration and manipulation of the images, that the collage becomes a vehicle for the mind's transition from one reality to another.

Lloyd Wassenaar
When photographing Downtown Chicago, wide is good, wider is better, and 360 degree is best.

Marjorie Woodruff

My work focuses on the process of constructing visually appealing objects that attempt to evoke an uncomfortable emotional response through addressing difficult political and social concerns, and that also plays with the notion of decorative forms. I make art with the intent of challenging the viewer and myself, whether through creating well-made objects based on formal elements of design, traditional functional forms for utilitarian use, or through unconventional sculptures that aim to provoke communication among diverse people within a community.
Website: http://www.marjoriewoodruff.com

Regina Ziemann
One side of the equation is the image I see; a piece of the physical world and the other side of the equation is the viewer's imagination. I hope the viewer recalls a feeling of sudden awareness, "a fleeting moment".

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