Faculty Achievements

Faculty in the Department of Visual Arts have made extensive contributions to research and entrepreneurial relationships in the world academic community. These dedicated professionals have attained numerous high-level achievements that reflect the department’s mission of maintaining excellence in teaching and research.

Guenet Abraham began her career as a book designer at Pantheon Books, Random House, and as senior designer for W.W. Norton in
New York City. Her work is recognized and acknowledged by national organizations such as the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), American Association of Museums (AAM), and University College & Designers Association (UCDA).

Dan Bailey’s films and animations have received numerous national and international awards and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. His work has been screened at the Kennedy Center, Whitney Museum, and Museum of Modern Art, with broadcasts on HBO and PBS.

Steve Bradley’s art intersects video, sound performance/installation, and material culture to engage the public in a dialogue about culture and environment. In 2002, he was awarded a major research commission by Hull Time-Based Arts, U.K. Bradley has received a number of awards and commissions including those from the Walker Art Center, National Endowment for the Arts, and Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA). His work has been presented, exhibited, and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma/Helsinki, 2007 Soundscape/ Zürich, and the Smithsonian Institute.

Lynn Cazabon's recent work explores issues pertaining to human attachment to technological devices and artifacts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at venues such as Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Artists Space, Schroeder Romero Gallery, and the Mattress Factory. Cazabon has been awarded a number of fellowships at such residency centers as the MacDowell Colony, Jentel Arts Foundation, Yaddo, Fundacion Valparaiso, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Recent grants include awards from The Maryland State Arts Council, Franklin Furnace Archives, and the Camargo Foundation.

Irene Chan’s artwork has been purchased and collected by 69 major museums and academic institutions, including the Tate Modern, British Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, Walker Art Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York Public Library, Newberry Library, School of Design—Basel, Switzerland, and Yale University.

Cathy Cook has exhibited her award-winning films extensively in both solo and group shows, including screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. Her media works are in the permanent collections of Princeton University, National Library of Australia—Canberra, and New York University’s Film Library. Cook
has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2001, Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.

Mark Alice Durant’s photographs, installations, and performances have been presented at major museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Nationally and internationally, he has written and published extensively on the nexus of photography, performance and cultural phenomena. His books include McDermott and McGough: A History of Photography, and Robert Heinecken: A Material History.

Eric Dyer’s award-winning films have screened internationally at festivals including the Black Maria Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Festival des Cinémas Différents de Paris, Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival. His work has been exhibited at the Hirschhorn and the American Academy in Rome. In 2005, he was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for research in Denmark.

Vin Grabill is a video artist, whose single-channel video and installation work utilizing video have been exhibited nationally and internationally. In addition to individual projects, Grabill collaborates regularly with performing artists, choreographers, and poets in an attempt to find new solutions for the presentation of live arts utilizing live and recorded aspects of the video medium. Grabill won a Golden Eagle CINE Award in 1998 for "Poetry Moves" made in collaboration with Washington, D.C. performance artist Mary-Averett Seelye. In addition, his ongoing association with the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T. has resulted in several exhibitions of collaborative media projects in New York, NY; Paris, France; Karlsruhe, Germany; and Linz, Austria.

Preminda Jacob is an art historian whose research has been supported by a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship from the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University, a J. Paul Getty Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities, and a Provost’s Research Fellowship from UMBC. She has published widely, including her book, Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India (Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield); an article in Art Journal; and a book chapter in The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Industry (Routledge Press).

Neal McDonald’s electronic art has been shown in the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre, the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, and in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Lisa Moren has received numerous awards and fellowships for her intermedia work, including a 2003, National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2006, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Czech Republic. She has exhibited and presented nationally and internationally at Ars Electronica—Austria, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana—Slovenia, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Tim Nohe is an artist engaging traditional and electronic media in public life and public places. He received a 2006, Fulbright Senior Scholar Award from the Australia-America Fulbright Commission and three Maryland State Arts Council awards for his work in the area of New Genre and Installation/Sculpture. He has exhibited and performed his work in a range of national and international venues, including The Museum of Contemporary Art—Sydney, and the Inter-Society of Electronic Arts—Paris.

Kathy O’Dell is an art historian and the author of Contract with the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art, and the 1970s (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), and is currently coauthoring with Kristine Stiles a major survey book titled World Art Since 1945 (Laurence King Publishers, 2011). Dr. O’Dell has lectured at national and international institutions, including the Getty Research Institute, Guggenheim Museum of Art, Royal Danish Academy of Art, Danish Design School, and Manchester University in the United Kingdom.

Peggy Re’s graphic design research has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2002, National Endowment for the Arts, in the category of history and preservation for "Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter," an exhibition that traveled nationally and internationally. In 2003, a monograph of the same title was published by Princeton Architectural Press.

James Smalls is an art historian who is widely published and whose books include Homosexuality in Art (Parkstone Press, 2003) and The Homoerotic Photography of Carl Van Vechten: Public Face, Private Thoughts (Temple University Press, 2006). He has two book manuscripts in progress—Black Queer Visual Culture, and Géricault’s Black Men.

Ellen Handler Spitz was selected to be the 2008 Erikson Scholar at the Erikson Institute, Austen Riggs, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In addition, she is a Visiting Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities, 2007-08. She has held a number of year-long fellowships, including the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University (formerly, the Bunting Institute), the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences—Stanford University, the Camargo Foundation—Cassis, France, and the Center for Children and Childhood Studies - Rutgers University. Dr. Spitz is widely published in scholarly and public venues. Her books include: Art and Psyche (Yale University Press, 1985), Image and Insight (Columbia University Press, 1991), Museums of the Mind (Yale University Press, 1994), Inside Picture Books (Yale University Press, 1999), and The Brightening Glance (Pantheon Books, 2006; Anchor-Vintage Books, 2007). Her books have been translated into several foreign languages, including Italian and Japanese, and some of her other writings into Russian and Chinese.

John Sturgeon’s major awards include a 1981, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for research in video art, and a 1988-89, Fulbright Scholar Abroad Award for Argentina & Uruguay, where he produced video art and was a lecturer. In addition, he received three National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artists Fellowship Grants in video. Sturgeon has exhibited and performed extensively, both nationally and internationally, including solo commissions for the Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a retrospective at ICA—Boston, International Symposium on Electronic Arts—Chicago, Ars Electronica—Austria, and the Biennale of Sydney. Notable video screenings include the Whitney Biennial and broadcasts on PBS. His artwork is represented in the collections of major museums worldwide.

Calla Thompson has exhibited at the International Photography Biennial by invitation of the Centro Colombo Americano de Medellin in Columbia, and the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto. She has been awarded residencies, including those at Yaddo Artist Colony and Cooper Union, New York City.

Fred Worden’s films have been shown in the Whitney Biennial, The Museum of Modern Art, The Centre Pompidou, The Pacific Film Archive, The New York Film Festival, The London Film Festival, The Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Toronto Film Festival, and The Hong Kong International Film Festival.