Department Chair, Faculty, Affiliate Faculty, Staff

Department Chair

Deanne Pytlinski, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Art History, Theory and Criticism

303-615-1026

pytlinsk@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187Q

Office Hours:

Please schedule appointments using our online scheduling tool in the Student Hub. Be aware that some of our faculty advisors are only conducting phone or virtual appointments. Be sure to check your university email for any follow up regarding the mode in which your appointment will be conducted. Please contact the Department of Art office at 303-615-0300 if you need any assistance making an appointment.

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Dr. Pytlinski is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism and Chair of the Department of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her doctorate is from the Graduate Center of City University of New York where she wrote a dissertation entitled "Utopian Visions: Women and Early Video Art". She earned an M.S. in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Art with a concentration in Art History from Colorado State University. Her essay, “San Francisco Video Collectives and the Counterculture” has appeared in the recent anthology, West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977, published by University of Minnesota Press. She recently curated an exhibition for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art entitled "Craft Tech/Coded Media: Women, Art & Technology" which opened on October 3, 2013.

Faculty

Marin Abell
Assistant Professor - Sculpture Area Coordinator

303-615-0921

mabell@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187G

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Marin Abell grew up in coastal Virginia, earned his BFA in Sculpture from James Madison University, and his MFA in Sculpture and Expanded Practice from Ohio University. His sculptural practice is evocative of the trickster that engages our world in ways that dispel the illusion of separateness. He has received fellowships from organizations such as: The Center for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin; Sculpture Space in Utica, New York; and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO. He has exhibited at venues such as The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art; and installed public sculptures at venues such as: The ArtLot, Brooklyn; The I-Park Foundation; and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. His work has been reviewed by publications such as Hyperallergic, he has served as an editor for the online art theory journal .continent, and was the Director of Outreach at Spiro Arts in Park City, UT. Before coming to Denver, Abell was the Catron Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Washburn University in Topeka, KS, where he cultivated creative educational programs that interfaced with rural communities throughout Kansas, and has also taught at Ohio University, The University of Michigan, and The University of Alabama Huntsville.

Lisa Abendroth
Professor - Communication Design

303-615-0102

abendrot@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
CN

Office Number:
311D

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Lisa M. Abendroth is a Professor in the Communication Design program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She led the program as coordinator from 2000 to 2018. Her research focuses on public interest design and the social, economic, and environmental impacts created with, and within, the contexts of underserved people, places, and problems. Her pedagogy is committed to community-centered design practices that embolden access and equity. Lisa is a SEED Network cofounder, a SEED Evaluator coauthor, and a recipient of the SEED Award for Leadership in Public Interest Design. She is also a contributor to the Public Interest Design Institute. Lisa is a coeditor of two books in Routledge’s Public Interest Design Guidebook series: Public Interest Design Practice Guidebook: SEED Methodology, Case Studies, and Critical Issues, published in 2015; and, Public Interest Design Education Guidebook: Curricula, Strategies, and SEED Academic Case Studies, published in 2018. She has earned degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Lisa lectures, curates, exhibits, and publishes her work nationally and internationally. She was named a 2019 AIGA Fellow.

Leila Armstrong
Visiting Faculty - Art History, Theory and Criticism

303-615-1146

armstrle@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
RO

Office Number:
201

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Leila Armstrong is Visiting Faculty in Art History, Theory and Criticism. She received her Masters from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she wrote a thesis titled The Spatialization of Jerusalem in the Early Muslim Period. She is currently working on an exhibition of contemporary African photography that will run at the Center for Visual Arts beginning February 2015.

Peter Miles Bergman
Associate Professor - Communication Design Program Coordinator

303-615-0188

pbergma3@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
CN

Office Number:
311A

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Since graduating with a highly conceptual art degree from UCSD in 1996, I've sought to compliment a fine art practice oriented around mass communications by learning as much as possible about printing and publishing. I've worked as a screen printer's assistant, hand stripped film for packaging, jockeyed PDF's for Web Offset. I have a 1930 Chandler and Price letterpress in my garage.

After a decade covered in ink I decided to return to school, earning an MFA in Visual Communication from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and become a teacher so I could put my skills at the service of young people setting out on their own creative journey.

Feel free to look at my ongoing design, publishing and letterpress printing on instagram @is.press

Michael Bernhardt
Associate Professor - Foundations Program Coordinator

303-615-1147

mbernha2@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
RO

Office Number:
207

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Michael Bernhardt spent his early years as an amateur actor and theatrical technician, graduating with a BFA in Pottery and Art Education from Colorado State University in 1999 and earning his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2009. Bernhardt has shown nationally in Colorado, New York, Ohio, New Mexico, and Texas, and internationally in Columbia, France, Australia, and China. His work was published in the October 2009 edition of New American Paintings and in Propeller Magazine with the collaboration Barchael. Bernhardt currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Studio Foundations and Sculpture in the Department of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

image of Jewelry/Metals Faculty, Leslie Boyd

Leslie Boyd
Assistant Professor - Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing Area Coordinator

303-605-5887

lboyd24@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
RO

Office Number:
206

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Leslie Boyd is an artist, jeweler, and educator whose practice sites itself on the body. Her research interests include cultural appropriation, social practice, gender and contemporary US political identities/affiliations. She studied Metalsmithing + Jewelry at Pratt Institute (BFA) and the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA). Leslie has exhibited throughout the US and in venues abroad such as Ghost Gallery in New York, the super+Centercourt Gallery in Munich, Germany and at Object Rotterdam in Holland. In 2018 Leslie launched an ongoing project called Making Progress: Resources for Social Justice in Craft which aims to compile a comprehensive collection of resources for artists, educators, and students interested in craft as activism or social practice.

Rachael Delaney
Professor - Art Education Program Coordinator

303-615-0343

rdelane3@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187F

Office Hours:

Fall 2020 Office Hours:

Monday 9:30-11:30

Tuesday 2:00-3:00

Wednesday 9:30-11:30

Be aware that some of our faculty advisors are only conducting phone or virtual appointments. Be sure to check your university email for any follow up regarding the mode in which your appointment will be conducted. Please contact the Department of Art office at 303-615-0300 if you need any assistance making an appointment.

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Rachael Delaney is an Associate Professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver in the Area of Art Education. She has been teaching at the University since 2005 and has taught course work in various studio disciplines and art education. She earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA from SUNY New Paltz in Metalsmithing, and Licensure in Art Education in the Masters Program for Art Education at New York University.

Rachael began her career in education in 1998 at the K-12 level. She has taught in Boston, New York City, Seattle and Boulder. Her work as an artist, researcher and educator is directly influenced by her experiences in the classroom. She is interested in exploring the ways contemporary art reflects contemporary realities and the disruption of the customary through a collective experience that fosters engagement beyond appreciation. Her most recent body of work focuses on the collaborative and how learning through collective experiences can inform and broaden perceptions and constructions of meaning. Through her presentations both regionally and nationally Rachael provides an alternative framework for bringing contemporary art practices and works of art into the K-12 art classroom.

Carlos Fresquez
Professor - Painting Area Coordinator

303-615-0436

fresquez@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187J

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Carlos Frésquez was born and raised in Denver, Colorado where he still resides. He received a BA from Metropolitan State College in 1980 and a MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1995. He is currently an Associate Professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver and is the area coordinator of Painting.

He has exhibited his artwork in over 30 U.S. states and in ten different countries, including China, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Czech Republic and Russia. Carlos has lectured about Chicano Art history and his own artwork at many colleges, universities, galleries and art centers including: The Bronx Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Las Bellas Artes in Mexico City, The Albuquerque Museum and The National Museum of American Art in Washington DC.

He has been included in many touring exhibitions, including: Arte Caliente, traveling the U.S. (2005-2007); The Colorado Artist Fellowship Awards Exhibition- touring the state (1997); The Chicano Codices; Encountering Art of the Americas, which toured the American southwest (1992-1994); Rasquachismo; Chicano Aesthetics, which toured the state of Arizona (1988-1989); and the groundbreaking exhibition CARA - Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, which traveled nationally (1990-1993). His work is in many museum collections including: The Albuquerque Museum of Art; The Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM; The Nelson Museum of Fine Art, Tempe AZ; The Fort Wayne Museum of Art; Museo del Barrio, NY and the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL. www.carlosfresquez.com

Jade Hoyer
Assistant Professor - Printmaking Area Coordinator

303-615-0647

jhoyer1@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
190

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Jade Hoyer is an Assistant Professor of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver whose work utilizes printmaking, installation, and social practice. She addresses social issues in both research and practice. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Philippine Women’s University. Jade has been recognized by organizations such as the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and she has also held leadership positions on international print organizations like SGC International and the Association of Print Scholars. Jade completed her MFA with a printmaking emphasis at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2016), and her BA in Studio Art and Environmental Studies at Carleton College (2007). JadeHoyer.com

Matt Jenkins
Associate Professor - Integrated Media

303-615-0634

mjenki11@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187L

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Matthew Jenkins is an Assistant Professor with research interests in performance art, socially engaged art, internet art, and land art/environmental art. His work has been exhibited nationally at the University of Arizona, Versionfest 05 in Chicago, and at the Santa Fe Art Institute. His work has also been exhibited internationally at the Habitat Center in Mumbai, India, the Centro Cultural Recoleta (Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the Culture Center Polymer in Tallin, Estonia, and Concordia University in Montreal. Matthew Jenkins has an M.A. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico (2003) and an M.F.A. in electronic media art and design from the University of Denver (2007).

Tsehai Johnson
Associate Professor - Studio Art Program Coordinator and Ceramics

303-615-0645

johnsots@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187E

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Born in Ethiopia in 1966, Tsehai Johnson received degrees from Reed College (BA Art History), Massachusetts College of Art (BFA Ceramics), and the University of Colorado (MFA Ceramics). Exhibitions include Plus Gallery, Denver; Biennale Internationale de Vallauris, Magnelli Museum, France; Denver Art Museum, White Columns, New York; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; and the World Ceramic Biennale, Korea. Collections include the Museum of Ceramics, New York; Museum of Outdoor Arts, Colorado; and the Reyzjanesbaer Art Museum, Iceland. She received a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship in 2003 and completed an Art in Architecture commission for the Rogers Federal Building in Denver in 2013.

Sandy Lane
Associate Professor - Drawing Area Coordinator

303-615-0731

lanesan@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187P

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Sandy Lane serves as Associate Professor and Drawing Coordinator at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She received her BFA in 1995 from the University of Colorado at Boulder and continued her education, graduating in 1998 with her MFA, also from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Lane has been teaching studio art courses in Higher Education since 1999. She was a member of Edge Gallery, an artist run co-operative from 1996 - 2012. Currently, she is a member of Ice Cube gallery, also a co-operative art gallery in the art district referred to as RINO within the Denver community where she serves as New Membership Coordinator for the gallery.

Shawn Meek
Associate Professor - Communication Design

303-615-1437

smeek3@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
CN

Office Number:
311B

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Shawn Meek specializes in UX/UI design and front-end web development with over a decade of commercial experience. As a designer who also codes, he has served clients small and large to create custom websites, digital campaigns, social integrations and UX/UI for mobile and web applications.

Meek has worked for a number of award-winning advertising agencies commercially as a UX/UI designer and web developer. His teaching experience spans from the University of the Incarnate Word, Texas State University, Fort Lewis College to currently teaching interactive design as an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Meek also serves as Director of Mentorship & Education within the statewide AIGA Colorado Board of Directors.

When he is not teaching, Meek runs a freelance operation with clientele in the nonprofit, education and startup tech industries. Meek’s work has been recognized for excellence by leading communication design organizations, publications and journals, which include: Graphis, Logo Lounge, GDUSA, CMYK, AIGA, American Advertising Federation, The One Club, Rockport and HarperCollins Publishers.

shawnmeek.com

Jillian Mollenhauer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Art History, Theory and Criticism

303-615-0877

jmollenh@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187M

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Jill Mollenhauer is Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism in the Department of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She completed her doctorate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at UC, San Diego where she specialized in the arts and cultures of Mesoamerica with a secondary emphasis in Native American art. Her dissertation, Olmec Monuments as Agents of Social Memory, focuses on the stone monuments of the Olmec culture, specifically their role as agents in the production and erasure of social memory. Jill completed her BA in Art History at UCLA. Currently, she teaches the World Art 1 art history survey (ARTH 1600), as well as upper-division courses in the arts and cultures of Mesoamerica (ARTH 3401) and the pre-Columbian Andes (ARTH 3402), the art of the ancient Maya (ARTH 350D), and Latin America modern art (ARTH 3481), along with seminars in object agency (ARTH 490C) and art theory and criticism (ARTH 4480).

Kelly Monico
Professor - Communication Design and Studio Art

303-615-0879

kmonico@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
CN

Office Number:
311C

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Kelly Monico is a visual artist and designer who rearranges ordinary materials, physically and digitally, to explore notions of identity, objectivity and the inherent value implied by a gesture or act of intervention. The majority of her creative projects have drawn on the use of repetitive gestures, actions and patterning, as a means to study human behavior.

Kelly Monico is a Denver-based artist who received her MFA from the Electronic Media Arts and Design Program at the University of Denver in 2005. Monico currently teaches Integrated Media and Communication Design coursework at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is the recipient of several residencies and has been included in numerous international exhibitions, which include the Videomedeja Audio/Visual Festival in Serbia, The Banff Centre, Elsewhere Artist Collaborative, Sante Fe Complex, Point of Transition in Kassel, Germany and in conjunction with dOCUMENTA 13, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and the URB11 Arteles at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland.

Natascha Seideneck
Assistant Professor - Photography Area Coordinator

303-615-1149

seidenec@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
RO

Office Number:
205

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Natascha Seideneck was born in Germany in 1967, grew up in England and now lives in Denver, Colorado. She has a graduate degree from School for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with an emphasis in photography and digital media and has been a visual artist for over 25 years. Natascha has exhibited in Colorado, Massachusetts, California, New Mexico and New York. In addition to her photographic practice, she also engages in site-specific work that includes commissions for Denver International Airport, Colorado State University’s Behavioral Science Building and the Marriott Hotel. Currently she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Anne Thulson
Associate Professor - Art Education

303-615-1237

athulson@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187D

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Anne Thulson is Associate Professor of Art Education in the Department of Art at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her MFA is in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She directs the School of the Poetic City, a contemporary art camp for children in downtown Denver. She taught children at The Odyssey School in Denver and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO, as a National-Board-Certified teacher. She practices socially engaged art in Denver. Her expertise and research is in arts integration, local WPA murals, contemporary art education, assessing elusive acts of creativity, visual art standards, social justice art practices, the democratic classroom, Reggio Emilia documentation, and Expeditionary Learning art curriculum.

Summer Trentin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Art History, Theory and Criticism Program Coordinator

303-615-1253

strentin@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187N

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Summer Trentin is an art historian whose work focuses on Classical antiquity. Her current research examines the architectural, aesthetic, and thematic functions of the Roman domestic peristyle garden and the ways in which architecture reflected personal and cultural values. Her other areas of interest include Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and modern architecture.

She teaches upper level courses on the art and culture of ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt as well as African Art, World Art I, Reading and Writing Visual Culture, and BA Senior Experience, and is also the faculty adviser for Art Guild. She considers it a privilege to share her love of art and antiquity with Metro students.

Jessica Weiss, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Art History, Theory and Criticism

303-615-1293

jweiss16@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
AR

Office Number:
187K

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Jessica Weiss is Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She received her doctorate from the University of Texas, Austin, with specializations in Iberian and Northern European Early Modern art and a secondary emphasis in Medieval art. Her dissertation, entitled “Isabel of Castle, Flemish Aesthetics, and Identity Construction in the Works of Juan de Flandes,” analyzed the reception of Netherlandish painting in Spain and its importance to royal self-fashioning. She earned an M.A. at Southern Methodist University and two B.A.’s from the University of North Texas in Art History and French Language & Literature. Her essay “Inquisitive Objects: Material Culture and Conversos in Early Modern Ciudad Real” was published by The Research Paper Series of the Latin American and Iberian Institute of New Mexico in 2011. Her new research project explores the role of geography and foreign material culture in fifteenth-century Spanish devotion.

Yunjin La-mei Woo
Assistant Professor - Studio Art

303-605-7263

ywoo@msudenver.edu

Position Role:
Faculty

Office Location:
RO

Office Number:
204

Office Hours:

Campus Box Number:
59

Directory Profile

Bio:

Yunjin La-mei Woo is a conceptual artist and a cultural-studies researcher who examines what it means to be human or otherwise, especially through the metaphors of contagion. Born as the granddaughter of a Korean shaman, her practice is informed by her research on how images of the infectious, non-human, or supernatural intersect with issues of power, gender, class, and ethnicity. Her work encompasses experimental video, performance, sculpture, installation, writing, and participatory projects.

Woo’s work has been extensively exhibited, screened, and collected by diverse venues, including CYNETART (Germany), Female Filmmakers Festival Berlin (Germany), FICAE (Spain), Rabindranath Tagore Centre (India), and Zuckerman Museum of Art (GA, USA). She has also presented her research in conferences across disciplines such as CAA (College Art Association), CSA (Cultural Studies Association), AES (American Ethnological Society) and published in edited volumes such as Endemic: Essays in Contagion Theory (edited by M. Kari Nixon and Lorenzo Servitje, Palgrave Macmillan). As an independent curator, Woo has curated international art events such as Para-Sites Distributed Exhibition Project and Infected Instructions. She earned her BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Seoul National University, South Korea, and is currently working on her PhD dissertation in Communication and Culture at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Concurrently, Woo teaches interdisciplinary art as an Assistant Professor of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Website: www.yunjinlameiwoo.com