Sign Up
for our newsletter
| Calendar |
| Attending HSA |
Areas of Study |
| HSA Programs for Schools |
| HSA–TAP |
| Contact Us |
| News |
| Support HSA |
| Facility Rental |
Visual Arts Department Faculty |
| Olubamidele (Olu) Amenechi is a videographer and educator and an award-winning media technology specialist. He earned an MFA degree in Television Production from Brooklyn College and B.Sc. degree in Media-Communications/TV Production from Medaille College. His students were awarded first prize by the New York State Consumer Affairs Protection Board, Albany in 1996 for creating a public service announcement in a statewide contest. He has taught video production at DCTV/Department of Cultural Affairs, Show Time Networks’ NYC Youth Video Festival, The Center for the Media Arts, Paul Robeson Cultural Center, Brooklyn College and CUNY. |
| Jill Austen, a visual artist and musician, grew up in Minnesota and began studying flute at the age of nine. She fondly recalls the tactile sensation of finger paints at a much earlier age than that. Both sound and color captured her imagination. However, she chose to focus on a career in music. Art, she perceived, was a solitary pursuit and music more collaborative and social. It was the right choice at the time. Music has taken her across the U.S. and to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Visual arts have always played a vital role in Jill’s creative life, and in addition to basic studio arts classes, she earned a number of graduate credits in art history while obtaining a Master of Music degree at the University of Minnesota. Her work took a more professional turn when she accepted a position as lecturer of music at the College of the Bahamas in Nassau (2002). Island life, with its combination of natural beauty and slower pace, afforded the inspiration and time for her to develop greater skill and artistry in her favorite medium of pastel. Since then she has exhibited in the Caribbean, New York, Colorado and Texas. |
| Christopher Bailey earned a BFA degree in illustration and cartooning from the School of Visual Arts and interned at Valiant Comics at the age of seventeen. He has an extensive illustration background which includes comic books, storyboard art and character design as well as editorial art for the Amsterdam News. He has also been a volunteer art instructor at the Hope School of the Arts, assisted in illustrating handbags for the Ania Cherry Company and has designed murals for the show Johnny Zero. |
| Michelle Cheikin has taught photography at the Harlem School of the Arts since the summer of 2004. The topics of her classes range from head shots and design concepts to collage murals and building pinhole cameras. The history of photography and discussions about cultural identity are also explored through reading materials, field-trips to exhibitions and guest lectures. She has assisted photographer Susan Meiselas in her exhibition From the Stone Age to the Digital Age: The Dani of the Belium Valley and artist Dread Scott in his project Lockdown. Ms. Cheikin earned an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts. Her photography has been exhibited at the Camera Club of New York and the Queens Museum of Art. |
| Chris Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan and immigrated to Los Angeles, California. In high school, he became interested in architecture and design and was accepted into the architecture program at the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, he joined Gensler Architecture, working on retail design for Smith & Hawken, Sharper Image, Gap, AAA of Northern California and others. In 2001, he moved to New York City to pursue a Masters in Architecture at Columbia University. While at Columbia, he interned at the Urban Technical Assistance Project (UTAP) on a comprehensive re-planning of Gert Town in New Orleans (pre-Katrina). Chris lives in Harlem and is a Project Manager for high-rise residential interior architecture at Kondylis Design. |
| Elsie Taliaferro Hill earned a BFA degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA degree in Visual Art from the Columbia University School of the Arts. She was awarded the D’Arcy Hayman Scholarship and the Agnes Martin Fellowship from Columbia University and a Residency Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. She has worked as a full-time portrait artist in Savannah, GA. She taught art in Savannah in a program sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Savannah and also at the Wesley Community Center, where she developed and taught in the first visual arts program of an after-school program that served Savannah’s public schools. Ms. Hill was also the co-owner and director of the Talialou Gallery in Savannah. She has exhibited in New York and Savannah since 2000. |
 |
| Imo Nse Imeh (Director, Visual Arts Program) earned his BA from Columbia University and MAs in Art History and Philosophy from Yale University. A Yale John F. Enders Research Fellow for 2007, Mr. Imeh is currently completing his doctorate in art history under the supervision of Dr. Robert Farris Thompson. His thesis, “Daughters of Seclusion,” is a consideration of the philosophical and art historical implications of women’s initiation ceremonies in Southeast Nigeria. A member of the Yale University Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society and a Yale University Graduate Fellow, Mr. Imeh has been a recipient of numerous honors and fellowships, including repeated departmental honors for his undergraduate work at Columbia, and has been a Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar and a One Hundred Black Men Foundation Scholar. Mr. Imeh was a teaching assistant to Doctors Kellie Jones and Robert Farris Thompson at Yale, and was a Curatorial Assistant in African Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. Mr. Imeh’s work has been shown at area galleries and institutions, including the White Space gallery in New Haven, CT and the Rush Arts gallery in NY. His current project: creating eight large-scale paintings, collectively called “The Promise,” to be donated and installed by Autumn 2007 within the Harlem Children’s Zone (The Promise Academy). Mr. Imeh is a Visiting Professor of Painting at Westfield State College in MA. |
| George Madarasz was born in Hungary and graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Budapest with a BFA in painting. He studied Graphic Communication at Baruch College, CUNY. He has been a web designer and a visual artist and received an Adolph Gottlieb Foundation Award. He has taught Digital Photography at the Cooper Union and Web Design and Graphic Design at EAI Training and Consulting. He runs the Tate Chelsea Art Gallery, an on-line e-commerce web site. |
| Karina Pérez Aragón completed her BFA at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in 1989 and received her MFA from the S. M. de Tucuman National University. Ms. Pérez Aragón received her Kunst Magister diploma with emphasis on Studio Painting and Graphic Art from Austria where she presented her work in numerous solo shows and group projects. Ms. Pérez Aragón studied at Pratt Institute, graduating with honors with a Master of Fine Arts degree in February 2005. |
| A. Rico Speight an award-winning independent filmmaker, digital video media artist and educator, earned a BA from Boston University and a MA from Emerson College. He was the video artist-in-residence at the Bronx Museum of the Arts and a 1999 Revson Fellow at Columbia University. Mr. Speight has twice been awarded fellowships by the New York Foundation for the Arts. His 1986 documentary The People United has been broadcast on PBS and screened at festivals and arts institutions worldwide, including FESPACO and MOMA. In 1997, Mr. Speight’s documentary Who’s Gonna Take the Weight? made its broadcast premiere on South African Broadcasting Corporation television, and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999; Where Are They Now? was his 2006 follow-up with the subjects of Who’s Gonna Take the Weight? In 1992, he was honored by the Black Filmmaker’s Hall of Fame for his narrative short, Deft Changes. Mr. Speight has taught at NYU, Pratt Institute, City College and Hunter College. Rap Perspectives, a production of his Hunter College students, was honored in 1991 at the National College Television Programming Awards. A member of IATSE, Mr. Speight’s editing credits include The Reunion starring Denzel Washington and William Greaves’ docudrama, Frederick Douglass: An American Life. |
| The Harlem School of the Arts is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York City Council, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, The Carnegie Corporation, The After-School Corporation, Altman Foundation, Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, United Jewish Appeal and other corporate, foundation and individual partners. HSA is a member of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. |
