Andrew W. Allison is a mixed media artist born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Pittsburgh. He began making things early on in order to engage with his experiences with nights terrors. Allison creates intuitive, sculptural installations using hand-made, mixed media objects and paintings that explore identity, memory, and the preternatural.
Susquehanna, Current
Mine Factory, Alumni
Sharlene Bamboat is an artist based in Toronto and Pittsburgh, who works predominantly in film, video, and installation. Her works have exhibited at galleries and festivals internationally, including Les Complices* (Zurich), the Images Festival (Toronto), The Art Gallery of Windsor (Ontario), and Vasakh Film Festival (Lahore).
Bamboat often works collaboratively, most notably with artist Alexis Mitchell under the name Bambitchell. The duo were recently film/video fellows at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany (2016-2017).
Current Artist, Susquehanna
Susquehanna, Current
Susquehanna, Current
Kimberlyn Bloise is a ceramic artist living in Lawrenceville, PA. Working mainly in porcelain, Kimberlyn makes musical ceramic objects, specializing in pieces that are dually-functional as drinking vessels and musical instruments. She's working on patenting the flute handle that makes it possible for you to play a tune and have your coffee at the same time. In December of 2014, Kimberlyn graduated from Mercyhurst University with a B.A. in Studio Art and moved back home to Pittsburgh. She was a member of the ceramics cooperative at Union Project in Highland Park from 2014 to 2016 where she taught ceramics classes and worked alongside some truly wonderful artists. Kimberlyn was chosen to receive an Emerging Artist Scholarship for the Three Rivers Arts Festival in 2015, which kickstarted her business as a traveling artist. Kimberlyn now enjoys traveling to art shows all over the country to sell her work.
Susquehanna, Current
Christopher Boring is a painter living in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. Christopher focuses on traditional, direct observational, painting and drawing. Recently his work was exhibited in Phoenixville Center for the Arts in Phoenixville,PA and Future Tenant in Pittsburgh, PA. Christopher attended and graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with his B.F.A. in Drawing and minor in Painting from 2008 to 2012.
Susquehanna, Current
Susquehanna, Current
Oreen Cohen explores the potentiality of material, self, and space in site-specific sculpture, public art, interventions and video performance. In 2014, Cohen received a Masters in Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon University and has participated in exhibitions, residencies, and public commissions nationally and internationally including Alloy Pittsburgh, FIGMENT Sculpture Project on Governors Island, NYC and the Chevy Commons, and Flint Public Art Project (Flint, MI). Solo and group exhibitions include “Nearly Captured” at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (2015); “Lossless” at Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University (2014); “My Future Ex” at University at Buffalo Gallery (2013); Shibolet at Area 405, Baltimore, MD; and Running Drill at Transformer Gallery, DC (2011). Cohen received a New York Foundation for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship (2011) and a Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council grant (2013, 2012). Oreen has also participated in residencies such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013) and CerCCa Casamarles in Catalonia, Spain (2012).
Susquehanna, Current
Susquehanna, Current
Artist Statement/ Bio: April Friges’ art practice is about looking at photographic conventions and creating alternate methods by blurring the boundaries of digital and analog media. She considers how ideologies of photography range in definition from person to person, and how that translation differs today in both physical and immaterial form. Her photographic works comprise of large-scale, unique, black and white and color darkroom prints. Her images are not from a camera; Friges works in the darkroom with only photosensitive paper and light to develop a complex and imaginary language with the mediums in exploration. The paper is physically manipulated to construct three-dimensional sculpted works that examine the intersection between image and object. The site-specific gallery lighting create shadows from these objects, relating to the origin of how the works are created. Once off the walls, the pieces are often rolled up and flattened, thus creating a body of work in flux every time the work is exhibited.
April Friges was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and in 2010 received her MFA in studio art from The University of California, Irvine. Friges lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is the assistant professor of the BFA photography program at Point Park University.
Susquehanna, Current
Mine Factory, Alumni
Sondra Rose Hart is a multifaceted artist involved in practices of oil painting, work with collage and drawing in many media, and exploring PowerPoint presentation for purposes of storytelling and entertainment. Sondra received a Bachelor of Humanities and Arts degree in Fine Art and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Living in Pittsburgh, Sondra practices 'plein air' painting of the city and surrounding country. Her style emphasizes the personality and uniqueness of her subjects, however abstract or inanimate they may be.
Sondra is unavoidably influenced by the sea, having grown up on coasts in New England, and this aquatic affinity comes through in her work. Sondra's work, both visual and written, on land and by sea, is devoted to making connections and describing the characters of individuals, landscapes and objects of this world.
Susquehanna, Current
Heather Heitzenrater is a figurative oil painter from Punxsutawney, PA but now lives with her fiance in Pittsburgh. Heather uses reflective mylar to create surreal, colorful environments that the figures inhabit. Heather received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Edinboro, PA in 2015. Her work has been shown in the Erie Art Museum and has be published in the Chimera 11 journal and also on the cover of the Happy Hour Review. In addition, Heather is a new member of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists. Along with showing her work around the city, Heather also hosts painting parties at Painting with a Twist in the South Side. Heather and her fiance, Christopher Boring, share a space at the Radiant Hall Susquehanna location.
Susquehanna, Current
Todd Keyser is a painter residing in East Liberty, PA. Keyser’s paintings emphasize their own architectural potential through a geometric interplay that is direct and evocative. The work is resolutely abstract in its totality; composition, tone, touch, and color are highly calibrated in the artist’s paintings. He has exhibited at Gross McCleaf Gallery, FJORD, Vox Populi, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and with AAP at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Todd Keyser received his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2008-2011) and his BFA from University of the Arts, Philadelphia, pa (1993-1998) and a certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1994-1998). Keyser has written for Title-Magazine, Bmoreart, criticaleyes, and the Pittsburgharticulate.
Susquehanna, Current
Julie Lindell works on paper as well as sculptural assemblage. Her drawings inform installations that impart a sense of errant functionality. She studied art at the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, received an MFA from Leslie University in Cambridge and recently a Masters in Critical Theory and the Arts from SVA, NYC, 2014. Her work has been shown extensively in California, Oregon, and Washington as well as in Boston and recently with the Chris Davison Gallery, Newburgh NY.
Susquehanna, Current
Adam Linn is a painter and printmaker based in Pittsburgh, PA. After receiving his BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017 he moved back home to continue his interdisciplinary practice.
Adam explores his fascination with anthropomorphism in the depiction of a queer universe, rife with all things perverse and comical but also sinister and twisted. He creates quasi-genre paintings portraying a clan of cat creatures inhabiting, interacting with, and exploiting a space somewhat reminiscent of the pastoral landscape. Adam continues to develop this cast of characters with embedded histories and underlying humor to subvert the canons of classical wildlife painting and narrative scenery.
Susquehanna, Current
I have been making quilts for more than thirty years. Throughout this time I have made both traditional pieced and appliquéd quilts as well as nontraditional art quilts. Primarily, I make pictorial quilts that convey image of the African American experience. These quilts are also called story quilts because they do in fact, through imagery, tell a story. My work often features images of women in domestic life. The use of cotton fabrics in these domestic scenes provides the perfect intersection between the materials, simple cotton fabrics, and the subject matter, for example, a woman selling flowers at a low Carolina market. Some scholars argue, based on evidence of ceremonial African antiquities, that quilting may have originated from the piecework done by Africans before they were enslaved and brought to America. This piecework done by Africans combined with the fine needlework done by European settlers became the genesis for patchwork quilts. Quilting is truly an American art form and an important part of the African American tradition, a tradition that I am passionate about preserving through my work.
My current work is in response to President Trump’s position on immigration, his imposed travel ban to the United States from certain Muslim countries, and the polarized American landscape. The first quilt in this series is titled, “Yes We Can.” Those words were echoed throughout President Obamas’ hopeful Presidential campaigns and farewell address. I have translated “yes we can” into more than twenty-five different languages and appliqued those translations onto different patterned fabric to create the quilt. The diverse use of fabric and patchwork represent America’s diversity.
Another quilt in this series is the “Pussy Hat” quilt. This work replicates the sea of hand knit pink hats worn by protesters during the 2017 march on the Mall at the Washington Monument. Large machine pieced pink hats appear in the foreground of the quilt; the hats diminish in size moving towards the background. The quilt also contains words; adding fabric text to quilts is something I am doing more of in my work.
My work has been exhibited all over the country and published in important fiber arts books and magazines. When I exhibit my work, viewers often share stories of a favorite aunt or their grandmothers who made quilts. They recall the weight of the quilts on their bodies on cold winter nights, the worn out clothing skillfully repurposed into something beautiful, a quilt made for a new baby, a wedding, etc. Quilts resonate with diverse audiences. They are culturally significant and I am passionate about creating quilts and preserving the art and craft of quilting.
Susquehanna, Current
Conor McGrann is a printmaker, mixed media, and installation artist living in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. His work is focused on the relationship between geography and culture, usually manifesting in the form of maps. He examines the co-evolution of space and community through time, revealing tension between the built and natural environments. Conor received a BFA in printmaking from Syracuse University in 2009. In addition to his own artwork, he currently works as the Printshop Coordinator at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and as a local teaching artist.
Susquehanna, Current
Aisling (pronounced Ash-ling) Quigley received her BA in Studio Art (focus in printmaking) from Carleton College in Minnesota. Since then, she has worked in museums and libraries (with a brief stint at a zoo and vet clinic), and is currently a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. I make art as much as I can, and it is usually somewhat whimsical.
Susquehanna, Current
I work across diverse mediums and disciplines, incorporating broad interests into my studio practice, set design, and socially engaged projects. I am attuned to the contradictions, nuances, beauty, sadness and ridiculousness saturating the cultural atmosphere of contemporary life in America. My attunement to the visual and cultural landscape of the moment is the driving force behind much of my work. I delight in using the cast off materials and images of mass production and mass culture yet I resist the system that would create such materials, endanger the natural world and destroy people. This contradiction enables my work to hold both humor and the pathos of our contemporary plights. I understand that my acts of creation are a contrast to the awareness of the destruction and violence of our time.
Susquehanna, Current
Nikita Zook is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She makes art to discover and creates work that is decidedly positive and often whimsical. Nikita’s studio practice has always been self-guided and self-motivated and much of her work is very personal. Through the process of making, she explores ideas of self, vulnerability, imagination, and meaning. She works primarily with paper and ink, but also uses watercolor, gouache, her iPhone, and cut up magazines and is always experimenting with new techniques and materials.
March through July 2016, she completed her first 100 day project focused on hand lettering and shared a quote each day for 100 days on Instagram @just_make_things, establishing creative habits and productive risk taking. In December 2016, she focused on drawing and digital design, and shared an original sketch or image every day for 30 days. She is currently in the middle of 365 days of making in 2017. The best way to follow her work is on Instagram @nikita.zook.
Susquehanna, Current
Susquehanna, Current
