These Kipaipai Fellows have returned to lend their experience as Peer Mentors.
Terry Arena
Terry Arena is most notably recognized for her clustered swarms of bee drawings on metal tins which were first shown in the back of a box truck. Having spent most of her life in Southern California near areas rich in agriculture her work champions the environment and more often, our food sources. Arena’s practice includes drawing, cut paper, weaving, and sculpting with non-traditional materials such as humanely sourced bee cadavers. Her work has been written about in digital and analog publications such as Art and Cake, Diversions LA, The Art Newspaper, ArtScene, Fabrik, Entropy and Artillery magazine and has been exhibited at venues such as Thinkspace Gallery, Culver City; Antler Gallery, Portland; San Diego Art Institute; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster; Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach and the Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard.
Chelsea Dean
Chelsea Dean was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and has a BA in Studio Art from the University of Puget Sound, and an MFA in Drawing from Claremont Graduate University. Dean has exhibited throughout Southern California at High Desert Test Sites, The Main Museum, Carl Berg Gallery, Raid Projects, Fellows of Contemporary Art, PØST, Monte Vista Projects, and Cirrus Gallery, as well as internationally at Gallery Lara Tokyo in Tokyo. She currently teaches art full-time in Los Angeles and has a studio in Lincoln Heights.
Christine Ferrouge
Christine Ferrouge paints familiar, yet mysterious, anthropological tales that extend beyond the canvas. Her recent work contemplates girlhood and the environments that influence the artist’s three daughters. Ferrouge studied art in Florence, Amsterdam, and the Dominican Republic; and taught art in Chicago, and Los Angeles. Twenty years of oil painting and studio practice inform her bold, gestural style. She currently lives and works in Oakland, California. Her recent solo shows were with Autobody Fine Art, Gray Loft Gallery, and Gallery at the Werkshack. Ferrouge was selected for Kipaipai in 2018 and has participated three workshops. She is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association and the Berkeley Art Center. Ferrouge manages curation for the Werkshack and serves on the Oakland Art Murmur gallery committee. In 2019, Ferrouge developed and directed Art Route Oakland, a city-wide activity engaging visitors with over 30 local art venues and galleries.
Mary Anna Pomonis
Mary Anna Pomonis is a Los Angeles-based artist known primarily for her abstract paintings utilizing commercial airbrush tools as referents to both masculine and feminine power. Pomonis has exhibited in galleries and institutions, including the Western Carolina University Museum of Fine Arts, the Torrance Art Museum, the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Her artwork has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, Whitehot Magazine, and Artweek. Additionally, her curatorial projects and essays have been featured in museums and gallery spaces throughout Southern California. She is the founder and a contributing member of the artists collective, the Association of Hysteric Curators. The AHC has been in both national and international press as a result of their social practice projects and activism in the Los Angeles area. Pomonis currently is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at California State University Fullerton. She is co-editor, along with Professor Annie Buckley, of Radical Actions: From Teaching Artists to Social Practice, a social practice website.
Joy Ray
Joy Ray’s abstract paintings and sculptures are defined by a bold, minimalist palette and richly textured materials including sand, wool and rusted metal. She lives and works in Hawai’i and Los Angeles, and exhibits internationally. Joy’s work has been featured at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster CA, the Museum of Quilts and Textiles in San Jose CA, the Hawaii Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hawaii State Art Museum, Art Basel Ping Pong, Shockboxx Project, Launch LA and bG Gallery. Her work is held in the collection of the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster CA and in private collections. She has been featured in publications including LA Weekly, Artillery, Whitehot and Riot Material. Joy Ray received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Catherine Ruane
Catherine Ruane is an artist and teacher living and working in southern California. Catherine maintains a professional studio in both San Diego and downtown Los Angeles where she develops her ongoing series of detailed drawings and paintings of native plants which the artist regards as a metaphor for the cycles of life. Her work as been exhibited in museum such as Museum of Art and History, in Lancaster, CA, the Riverside Museum of Art, Oceanside Art Museum, Torrance Art Museum, University of AZ Art Museum, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, as well as Palazzo del Provincia di Frosinone in Italy. Catherine has been curated into shows at Coagula Gallery, Porch Gallery in Ojai, CA, Brand Library Art Gallery, Gallery Antenna in Kyoto, Japan, Launch Gallery, San Diego Art Institute and many others. She teaches drawing and painting at Victor Valley College where she also fund-raises and curates shows for the college art gallery. She is a member of College Arts Assoc. as well as Los Angeles Arts Association. , Her work is included in art the collections of the University of AZ Art Museum, Harely Davidson USA, 20th Century Fox Studio, CBS Television, Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., Boeing Company, Wells Fargo Bank, Turner Broadcast Network, among many more.
Jane Szabo
Jane Szabo is a Los Angeles based fine art photographer with an MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Her work investigates issues of self and identity. Using self-portraiture and still life as a vehicle to share stories from her life, her work merges her love for fabrication and materials, with conceptual photography. Szabo brings many facets of visual art into her photographic projects, incorporating sculptural, performance and installation elements into her work. Her imagery is often infused with humor and wonder, ingredients that draw the viewer in, inviting them to linger and to have a dialogue with the work, and themselves. Her background in the film industry, creating prop and miniatures for theme parks, and overseeing set construction for film and television, undoubtedly informs her creative process. Szabo’s work is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA) and her photography has been exhibited widely, including solo shows at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Yuma Fine Art Center in Arizona, and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Oceanside Museum of Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, The Colorado Center for Photographic Arts, San Diego Art Institute, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Tilt Gallery in Arizona, Houston Center for Photography in Texas, Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, the Kaohsiung International Photographer Exhibition in Taiwan and fotofever in Paris, France. Her photographs have been featured in many publications and blogs including: The Huffington Post, Lenscratch, Silvershotz, Bokeh Bokeh, L’Oeil de la Photographie, F-Stop Magazine, Foto Relevance, Fraction, Your Daily Photo, A Photo Editor, Don't Take Pictures, Art & Cake, Diversions LA, ArtsMeme and others.