Maggy Cuesta
Dean of Visual Arts
305-237-3649
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Born in Cuba and raised in Texas, Dean Cuesta began her career in graphic design in Miami, establishing a partnership in The Image Designers Group. Cuesta has served on the board and as President of the American Institute of Graphic Arts [AIGA]-Miami Chapter and in 2004 she received the AIGA Fellows Award. Ms. Cuesta has been very involved in the AIGA both locally and nationally on collaborative exhibitions such as ¡propaganda! Cuban Political and Film Posters, Power of Typography, and Sharing Dreams of Peace with the AIGA Cross Cultural Committee. Her work has been published in Communication Arts, Print, Print Casebooks, AIGA, Graphis and Hot Graphics USA. Ms. Cuesta received her BFA in Graphic Design from Texas Tech University and her MFA in Graphic Design from California Institute of the Arts.

Susan Banks is a native of South Florida and has been working in Ceramics for over 25 years. Her sculpture has been exhibited nationally and she is the recipient of two Florida State Artist Fellowships. Her work is included in many private and Museum collections. She completed her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Miami and her BFA from Florida International University. Professor Banks’ other achievements include site specific Environmental Art installations and community projects in the Miami area. She is a member of the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts and Florida Craftsmen.

Rosario Martínez-Cañas was born in Havana, Cuba and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She received her BFA from Loyola University [New Orleans] and her MFA from Miami International University of Art & Design. Rosario has worked in the graphic design field for many years and is the founding partner of The Image Designers Group, an award-winning graphic design studio. The studio's designs have been featured in several books among them Hot Graphics USA. Professor Martínez-Cañas served on the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Graphic Arts [AIGA] Miami Chapter for six years and is currently the advisor for the AIGA’s New World School of the Arts student chapter.

Aramis O'Reilly received his MFA in painting from Florida International University and attended both the University of Connecticut and Florida International University for his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. His work has been shown in various national and international exhibitions and is included in numerous private and public collections. Besides his studio work he has been involved in several large scale public art projects. Professor O'Reilly is also a recipient of the Cintas Fellowship Award.

Alisa Pitchenik  received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and her BFA in Painting and Art History from the University of Miami. She has exhibited or curated/juried for museums, galleries, film festivals, television, internet and alternative spaces in New York, California, Miami, and Italy. She worked on the documentary Cybersight: Giving Eyes to the Blind, as well as, “They’re Rich, You’re Dead an anti-smoking web-site. Professor Pitchenik participating in “Hands Across the Ocean: The Lost Chord” an Internet 2 project which won the Inaugural Peoria Prize for Creativity in the Arts and Sciences. Professor Pitchenik is a member, attends and participates in Siggraph-a global organization dedicated to representing the most current information on technology in the arts, education, animation, film and science.

Georgette Ballance earned her MA in art history from American University and her MFA in graphic design from Yale University. She is the curator of numerous exhibitions, including A Paul Rand Retrospective, The Art of Ethiopia, and Leo Lionni: Spoon River Anthology. She has taught in Zambia and Ethiopia and worked at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa and the Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. Before starting her own business as a design consultant, she was design director at Pace Editions in New York City. She taught design history as well as interdisciplinary collaborative seminars at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and was director of The Herb Lubalin Study Center for Design and Typography. Co-editor of Graphic Design History and Paul Rand: A Designer’s Words.

Luisa Maria Basnuevo was born in Cuba. She received a B.F.A from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art. Her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries including the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art and the Musée de Luxembourg in France. Her work is in collections of the Ringling Museum of Art, Polk Museum of Art and Miami Art Museum. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, South Florida Consortium, Visual Artist Fellowship and the Division of Cultural Affairs in Florida.

Jenny Brillhart was born in Keene, NH in 1972. She received her BA from Smith College, attended the Art Students League in NY and received her MFA in 2002 from the New York Academy of Art. Brillhart's most recent solo show was at Dorsch Gallery in Miami. In 2008 Brillhart showed with Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery in Berlin and participated in group shows at David Castillo Gallery, Dorsch Gallery, the Anhaltinischen Gemäldegalerie Museum in Dessau, as well as Scope Miami, Art Forum Berlin and Scope NY. Other past shows include Roemerapotheke Gallery in Zurich, The Art Gallery at Government Center in Miami, Morgan Lehman Gallery in NY and CT and ArtCenter/South Florida in Miami Beach. Her work was recently published in The McKinsey Quarterly, New American Paintings and Miami Contemporary Artists. She was awarded the Chestler Foundation Grant and a Vermont Studio Center grant.

Carol K. Brown has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally in over more than 30 solo exhibitions. Her work has been shown at the Beijing Biennial; the National Museum for Women in the Arts; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and The Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans. Her work is included in the following museums and public collections: The Denver Art Museum; The Herbert Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University; The Frost Art Museum at FIU; The Miami Art Museum; The University of Colorado, Boulder; The Tampa Art Museum; The Jacksonville Art Museum; The University of Florida, Gainesville; The Polk Museum of Art; The Memphis Brooks Art Museum; The Arkansas Art Center Museum of Art; The City of Orlando; and both the State of Florida and Miami-Dade County’s Art in Public Places programs. Ms. Brown has twice been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for an individual artist.

Felecia Carlisle, a native Floridian, received her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, New Genres Department in 2006. Since then she has been teaching Digital and Electronic Media to undergraduate artists and showing her work in a variety of contexts including television in Madrid, Spain, and Moab, Utah, The Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg, Germany, Sarai Media Lab in New Delhi, India and The Honey Pot in Tampa, FL. Her work is often collaborative and draws from various disciplines such as music, performance, installation, sound art, design and architecture, sculpture and photography.

Gregory Davis works mainly in photography, using both contemporary digital techniques and traditional film-based technology. Mr. Davis originally majored in piano performance, but graduated from the University of Kentucky with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002, emphasizing photography and a Master of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2006.

Antonio Fernandez received his PhD at Michigan State University, his M.A.T. at Oakland University in Rochester, MI, his M.S. at the Institute of Design, Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. He combines careers as an artist whose medium is photography and as an educator who trains teachers.

Carlos E. Gallostra was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He is a graduate alumnus of The New World School of the Arts, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Media with Honors. He is also a graduate of The Pratt Institute of New York and holds two masters degrees, one in Fine Arts and the other in History of Art and Design. He worked extensively as a broadcast animator and graphic designer for local Fox affiliate, WSVN 7. As a painter, Mr. Gallostra has strived to bring to play a vast range of aspects into his work in recent years, which include 17th century Dutch and Spanish Baroque influences, anamorphic studies, and new form media in conjunction with traditional and non-traditional methodologies.

Christy Gast grew up in rural Ohio. She has exhibited at PS1, Exit Art, and Artists Space in New York, High Desert Test Sites and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in California, and Locust Projects in Miami, as well as venues in Chile, England, and Austria. Her videos, sculptures, performances and broadcast projects explore the intersections of folklore, identity, landscape, and the body. She completed her MFA at Columbia University in 2004, and lives and works in Miami.

Kathleen Hudspeth is a Miami native with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Miami in Printmaking. Her work has been in numerous local and national venues, including the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, the Bass Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. Her critical writings have been published in Art Papers, The Sun Post abd The Next Few Hours. Recently, she was selected as one of 45 finalists for the Knight Foundation Arts Challenge for her idea to start a community print shop.

Ruba Katrib is the Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. She holds a BA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Visual and Critical Studies and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS) at Bard College, New York. In 2002, she co-founded ThreeWalls, a non-profit artist residency and exhibition space in Chicago. Previously she has worked in museums and institutions including The Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and The Renaissance Society at the University in Chicago. She has curated a number of exhibitions with international emerging and mid-career artists in Miami, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Mexico City.

Maria Martinez-Cañas was born in Havana, Cuba. She received a B.F.A. in Photography from the Philadelphia College of Art and an M.F.A. from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Maria has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad and is the recipient of a Cintas Fellowship; a National Endowment for the Arts award; and a Fulbright-Hays Grant, among others. Her works are included in the permanent collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco; The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; among others.

Albena Petrus grew up in a small island in Cuba where, since primary school, she was painting and dreaming to be an engraver. For the past ten years, she has worked professionally in the design field. She holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Graphic Design from ISDI, Havana’s Higher Institute of Design, and a Master’s degree in Visual Communication from Pratt Institute, New York.

Annette Piskel is the principal founder, creative director, of AMPdzine, established in 1982, Los Angeles, CA to its present Florida based location of Ft Lauderdale. A multi-disciplinary graphic design firm that finds its own point of view, its own vision and style. Annette holds a B.F.A. in Design Communications from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. A past president and member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Miami Chapter. She was a recipient of the AIGA Fellows Award in 2006.

Karen Rifas received her MFA from the University of Miami. She is the recipient of awards from the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists and two Florida Visual Arts Fellowships. Public commissions and collections include the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida Department of Transportation, Miami Dade College and Miami-Dade Art in Public Places Art Bank. Recent shows include Karen Rifas, Morning Coffee, Miami Dade College, Karen Rifas, Cornered, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery and group exhibitions, Disappearance, Shadows and Illusions, Miami Art Museum and Pivot Points Part Three and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami.

Louise Romeo was born in Enna, Italy, and holds two masters degrees, one in Curriculum and Instruction and the other in Fine Arts. She received her MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Professor Romeo, former Dean of Visual Arts at New World School of the Arts, holds the distinction as one of the original founding faculty at NWSA. She was the recipient of the Frances Louise Wolfson Endowed Chair for artistic excellence and was selected by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts as the NFAA, Distinguished Professor in the Arts, and received the “Arts” Professor Certificate of Excellence. She also received the Arts Educator recognition Award, the FAEA Higher Art Educator recognition Award, the FAEA Higher Art Educator Award and was selected as the “Outstanding Faculty of the Year” by Miami-Dade College. Professor Romeo has exhibited on a national and international level.

Richard Romeo is a nationally known illustrator who has art directed, illustrated and designed in major corporations as well as in his own illustration and design studio. His interviews and award winning works have been published nationally and abroad. He has mastered and taught both traditional and digital media. Mr. Romeo holds two degrees, one in Fine Art and one in Communications Design and he is a graduate of Pratt Institute, New York.

Fred Snitzer earned his MFA from Pennsylvania State University and his BFA from Philadelphia College of Art. As the Director of the Frederic Snitzer Gallery, he has set the standard for presenting cutting edge art to the Miami Art Scene. In addition, he has lectured extensively, curate numerous exhibitions, and is on the selection committee for Art Basel. Mr. Snitzer is the recipient of New Forms Florida: Grants for Artists Project and has received extensive media attention for his trendsetting exhibitions.

Wanda Texon has worked professsionally in many facets of the visual arts: as a museum curator, gallery director, art dealer and professor of art history. Currently, Ms. Texon works for the Miami Dade College Gallery System. Ms. Texon lived in Europe after graduating from Florida State Univeristy where she received a certificate of specialization in Museum Studies in Restoration and Renaissance Art from the Universita Internazionale dell’Arte in Florence. She received her M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City.

Carol Todaro earned an MFA in drawing and printmaking from the University of South Florida. In 2000, she was awarded an Individual Artist's Fellowship from the State of Florida. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, Florida Atlantic University; and The Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Recent exhibitions include The Book as Art, organized by the National Museum for Women in the Arts and traveling to other cities; four and twenty blackbirds at Omniart, an Art Basel/Miami Beach event; and Floating World, a solo installation of large-scale book works, presented in conjunction with Miami Book Fair International.