Kansas City Art Institute

Samantha Krukowski is an artist, author and educator. Trained as an architect and art historian, she engages an interdisciplinary and intermodal practice that explores the nature of images and objects, the records of experience, the identity of place and the consequences of intervention. Her first book, Playa Dust: Collected Stories from Burning Man (Black Dog Publishing, 2014) was a compilation of untold tales about the event and impermanent city that appear and disappear annually in the Nevada desert. Her current writing project, T-Squared: Theories and Tactics in Architecture and Design (Intellect Press, 2021), reveals some the theoretical structures that inform curricula, and presents a series of projects and project prompts that are derived from them. Krukowski’s experimental videos have screened at hundreds of national and international film festivals; her drawings, paintings and sculptural works have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Prior to joining the Kansas City Art Institute, she was a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati (School of Design), Iowa State University (Department of Architecture), and the University of Texas at Austin (Department of Radio-Television-Film). She has been involved with foundations education for twenty years and has taught studios, seminars and lecture courses in architecture, art, design, art and architectural history. She taught the first academic studio course ever taught at Burning Man in 2010.

Over the last year, she and her partner have been working to renovate a derelict property in Northside, a tightly gridded Cincinnati neighborhood. This property, with three buildings situated on 1/3 acre, was once the site of the Brazel Novelty Company. Discoveries during the renovation included mummified possums, commies (Civil War clay marbles, so named because they were common), iron jacks and painted porcelain doll heads.

Krukowski received her B.A. in Political Science at Barnard College/Columbia University (1988), M.A. in Art History at Washington University in St. Louis (1992), March at The University of Texas at Austin (1997) and Ph.D in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin (1999). She has one daughter, two horses, and two dogs.

Steve Snell calls his work adventure art. This adventure and community-based practice has led him to variety of experiences, ranging from floating the Connecticut River in a couch-boat to a random encounter with Alec Baldwin while hiking across Western Massachusetts.

In 2014, Steve was an official artist-in-residence along the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska and British Columbia, which was sponsored by the National Parks Service and Parks Canada.  His work has been shown in galleries and film festivals throughout the United States, including the Aspen Shorts Fest and the Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe. Steve earned his M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2011) as well as a B.F.A. in Painting / B.S. in Art Education from Miami University (2006).

Contact: Ssnell@kcai.edu

Kevin Demery is an interdisciplinary artist from the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Demery received the Municipal Art League Grant from SAIC and participated in the Artist in Residence programs at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and Acre Residency in Steuben, WI, among others. He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally at the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and the Art Berlin fair in Berlin, Germany. He is set to have another solo exhibition in Frankfurt in 2022.

Andrew Mcilvaine is a Mexican American interdisciplinary artist. Born in San Antonio, Texas, and later moved to Missouri, Mcilvaine creates work about the displacement and replacement of cultures stemming from settler colonialism. The loss of cultural belief systems as a result of generational movement, and how these issues affect both personal and collective memory, identity, and history. Mcilvaine earned his BA in studio art from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. After receiving his BA, Mcilvaine moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he attained his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in painting and drawing. Currently, Mcilvaine lives and works in Kansas City and holds an Assistant Professor position in the Foundation program at KCAI.

Hugh Merrill, who joined the KCAI faculty in 1976, has had solo exhibitions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, as well as many other galleries and museums. He has been a visiting artist at over 50 universities and colleges internationally. Merrill has received National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Virginia Museum Fellowship, a Yaddo/Hand Hollow Fellowship, a Mellon Foundation Grant, and an Alliance of Independent Art Schools Faculty Grant in support of his work. He received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southern Graphics Council 2007. Merrill earned a B.F.A. degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and an M.F.A. degree from the School of Art and Architecture at Yale University.

Contact: Hmerrill@kcai.edu

Rodrigo Carazas Portal was born in Lima and raised in the Callao Province of Peru. He studied in the art department at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and later relocated to the U.S.A in 2009. Carazas earned his BFA from George Mason University’s School of Art in 2015. Also, he holds a MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art/MICA (class of 2020). Recent awards include the Graduate Merit Scholarship MICA (2018-2020), the Meyerhoff Fellowship (2019), [R.A.T] Fellowship -Mexico City (2019), the Best New Project Prize -Lima Biennial Art/“ABLi” (2016), and the Academic Excellence Distinction in Sculpture (GMU, 2015).

Sherry Sparks has particular interest, as an artist, in design, painting and photography. Her work has been included in various group shows, local galleries and in juried shows. Sparks received the Active Sponsor Award for her work in the Mid-Four Exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She is a designer with Asiatica, Ltd., in Kansas City, where she designs accessories and contributes to the fashion collection. Asiatica’s couture line is shown in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Sparks holds B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the University of Kansas.

Contact: Ssparks@kcai.edu

Caleb Taylor earned his M.F.A. degree in painting from Montana State University-Bozeman (2008), and his B.F.A. degree from Northwest Missouri State University (2004). He was named a Charlotte Street Foundation Fellow in 2010, and he’s the recipient of the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation M.F.A. Grant. Additional awards include a 2009 ArtsKC Inspiration Grant and a ThinkTank Emerging Educator Fellowship. Taylor also is a founding member of PLUG Projects, a curatorial collaboration in Kansas City. PLUG is a recipient of a 2011 Rocket Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, Spencer Museum of Art and Charlotte Street Foundation.

Contact: Ctaylor@kcai.edu