Portrait of Lillian Beeson

Lillian Beeson

Lillian Beeson is a second-year M.A. student in the History of Art and Archaeology at the IFA. She primarily uses social art historical methodology to examine how eighteenth- and nineteenth- century French art interacts with the cultural context in which it was created. She is also deeply interested in how curatorial practice can inform public perceptions of art, and she hopes to explore this further through her exhibition. Beeson graduated from Arizona State University and Barrett, The Honors College with a B.A. in Art History and a minor in Spanish. Her undergraduate thesis, “The Political Implications of David’s Oath of…

Portrait of Kristen Coy

Kristen Nicole Coy

Kristen Nicole Coy is a first-year M.A. Candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts and is focusing on East Asian Contemporary Art. She holds a B.A. from New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study where her concentration was titled, “The Consumption and Commodification of Art.” Kristen’s broad interests are focused on the cultural/societal meaning and representation of art objects as well as their relationship to psychoanalysis. In the spring of 2019, Kristen published The Rebirth of the Dandy as an Art Collector, which analyzes the treatment of art as a commodity. Kristen’s first curatorial project is titled ‘Delicate Nature,’…

Portrait of Meghan Doyle

Meghan Doyle

Meghan Doyle is an M.A. candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on Western art in the second half of the twentieth century and later. She is keenly interested in the application of artistic practice to conflict environments and the reconciliatory function of art in post-trauma scenarios. Upon earning Bachelor’s degrees in Art History and Italian from Pepperdine University, Meghan spent four years in the Post-War and Contemporary Art department at an international auction house, where she contributed to published catalogues, planned pre-sale exhibitions, and organized a limited-time showing of Elena del Rivero’s Archive of Dust in commemoration of…

Iris Mang

Iris Mang is a first-year M.A. Candidate with a research focus on early modern Chinese painting at the Institute of Fine Arts. She graduated with Honors from University of California, Santa Barbara, with a B.A. degree in art history. She has held curatorial and research positions at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California and OCAT Institute in Beijing, China.

Portrait of Kaylee Moua Nok

Kaylee Moua Nok

All of my work begins with tension. With an uneasy feeling in my stomach, I once asked my parents “What does it mean to be an American?” My parents’ answer was simple: “We live here, we raise our kids here, we are American,” they said, as if baffled that I even had to ask. Originally working as a studio artist addressing issues such as class, identity, and race, my curatorial goal is to work alongside artists to create a space where their stories can be told and heard the way that they intend. Storytelling is at the heart of my…

Portrait of JaBrea Patterson-West

Ja’Brea Patterson-West

JaBrea Patterson-West is an interdisciplinary scholar, writer, and curator based in Brooklyn, New York. Her academic research, curatorial projects, and writing center a critical engagement with the work of Black, Queer and Women artists working at the intersection of identity, representation and radical art praxis. As a doctoral student in Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts-New York University, she has published criticism in Flash Art and Cero Magazine. She also serves as the Curator (founder) of Modern Black Contemporary, a platform that aims to connect early career artists, writers, scholars, and diverse creatives, with a focus on community…

Portrait of Nicasia Solano

Nicasia Solano

Nicasia is a second year MA student at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts focusing her studies on 20th century art in Latin America and contemporary Latino art in the United States. She is the recipient of the Estrellita B. Brodsky Fellowship for Latin American Art History. Nicasia earned her B.A. from City University of New York’s Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies Program where she double majored in Modern Art History and Fine Arts and was the recipient of the Robert Smith Fellowship for Academic Excellence. She has held internships at the Institute for Studies on Latin American…

Kathryn Svensson

Kathryn Svensson is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, with an interest in the Grotesque in Western Art, and its relationship to contemporary art, visual abjection, contemporary museum and curatorial practices, as well as to discussions of race, gender, and sexuality. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Anthropology from NYU in May of 2021, and has since worked at Mmuseumm, an object-based, ‘contemporary natural history’ museum in Cortlandt Alley and at Hal Bromm Gallery in Tribeca. At the gallery she co-curated Metamorphosis, an exhibition centered around processing the psychological and emotional effects of…

Photo of Allison Carey on a rooftop in NYC.

Allison Carey

Allison Carey is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on  modern and contemporary art. She is broadly interested in the methods through which art and museums can illuminate repeatedly omitted historic narratives, especially in the context of movements for equality in America over the last half century. Allison previously studied art history at Dartmouth College, where she spent her senior year curating her own exhibition, “When Art Interests History,” at the college’s Hood Museum of Art. She has additionally held positions at a breadth of institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of…

Photo of Andy Cheng, intentionally out of focus.

Andy Cheng

Andy Cheng is a second-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU with a research interest in the intersection of minimalism and queer culture. Originally from Hong Kong, he was the co-curator of a touring exhibition of prints (Providence University Art Center, Taiwan; Our Gallery, Hong Kong) and Assistant Curator of Osage Gallery. He has also held an internship in the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, where he received his B.A. with First Class Honours in Art History and French.

Selfie style photo of Juul Van Haver in an empty interior.

Juul Van Haver

Juul Van Haver is originally from Belgium and is currently a Master’s student at the Institute of Fine Arts with a focus on modern and contemporary art. He is interested in critical theory, aesthetics, curatorial practice and experimental film and video with a special passion for the emergence of new media in the 50s and 60s. Juul previously studied Art History, Musicology and Theatre Studies at Ghent University from which he received a MA degree in 2021. In the past, he has worked at the Vandenhove Center for Architecture and Art (Ghent) and was a co-curator for “Impressions: From the…

Photo of Elyse Howell in front of a blank white wall.

Elyse Howell

A first-year M.A. Candidate the Institute of Fine Arts, Elyse Howell intends to focus her studies on the Late Antique and Medieval periods. She is interested in material approaches to art history and hopes to explore the intersections of art, material culture, and religion. Elyse is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, earning two B.A. degrees in history and art and art history. While an undergraduate, she was awarded a research fellowship that enabled her to study museum exhibitions at collections in London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and New York City. Prior to enrolling at the Institute, Elyse…

Photo of Barbie Kim in front of a stone wall.

Barbie Kim

Barbie Kim is an M.A candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, concentrating in East Asian art. Her research emphasizes the transnational art history of twentieth-century China in relationship with the ideology of “Western”.  Kim held a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Art History Thesis from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she focused in painting, sculpture, and art history. 

Photo of Sofia Ohmer in front of a blank white wall.

Sofia Maria Ohmer

Sofia Maria Ohmer is a first-year M.A. candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, focusing on modern and contemporary art. She is particularly interested in how art evokes democratic processes, and in the challenges contemporary political art faces today. Moreover, she wants to investigate how political art is made, exhibited, and perceived in non-democratic countries. Sofia earned her B.A. at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany, where she majored in culture, communication & management. While at Zeppelin University she held positions as a student researcher and as Executive Student Coordinator for Seelicht Medialab, the university’s media initiative. She interned at…

Photo of Grace Oller in an artist's studio.

Grace Oller

Grace Oller is a master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts focusing on modern and contemporary American art and curatorial practice. She received her BFA in Fine Arts, the History of Art and Visual Culture, and Creative Writing from Columbus College of Art & Design in May 2020. She has curated five group exhibitions, exhibited work in seven, participated in a black smithing residency, and was a month-long curatorial resident at the Second Sight Project in Columbus, Ohio. Before coming to the IFA, Grace was an Exhibition Assistant at the Columbus Museum of Art where she helped present a…

Madi Shenk

Madi Shenk is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on modern and contemporary art history. Shenk’s research interests include Marxist and queer perspectives of post-war art, thing-theory and materiality, as well as female collage artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. She earned her undergraduate degree in Humanities with focuses in philosophy and art history at Washington College in May of 2019, receiving the Art History Award and the Norman James Humanities Award for Excellence. She has held positions at the Kohl Gallery in Chestertown, Maryland, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., as well as…

Photo of Eve Sperling in front of a floral background.

Eve Sperling

Eve Sperling is currently pursuing her M.A. at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, with a focus on late medieval and early modern art. She is driven to write from ecocritical perspectives and is particularly interested in how animals, and human-animal relationships, figure into artworks of the past (both in terms of iconography and material). She received her B.A. in Fine Arts from Pitzer College in Claremont, C.A., with a Minor in Art History. Before graduating from Pitzer, Eve worked as Program Intern for Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena, C.A., and helped to organize the 2019 AxS (art + science) Symposium, Free Radicals:…

Shelby Bray

Shelby Bray is a master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on modern and contemporary art. She is especially interested in performance art and the ways in which bodies and identities can be depicted through different types of media. Shelby previously studied Art History and Human Development at the University of Connecticut as well as the International Studies Institute in Florence, Italy. As an undergraduate, she held internship positions at The Contemporary Austin in Austin, Texas and Anderson Contemporary in New York, New York. In her free time, she enjoys working out, reading, and hiking with her dog.

Chloë Courtney

Chloë Courtney is a first-year PhD student at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. She earned her MA in art history at the University of New Mexico in 2018, where her research focused on contemporary artists contending with Mexico City’s fraught ecological history. Past curatorial projects have emphasized the intertwined relationships between neoliberal power structures, social understandings of nature, and ecological degradation. Last year, she was the 2019-2020 McDermott Curatorial Intern for Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Courtney’s current research continues her focus on modern and contemporary art of the Americas, with a particular interest in…

Emma Flood

Emma Flood is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, specializing in modern and contemporary art. Her primary interests are feminist and Marxist perspectives, and the history of portraits and self-portraits. She held positions at the Bell Museum of Natural History and at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Her museum work has piqued her interest in bringing interactive models of learning and engagement into art world contexts. She earned her B.A. from St. Catherine University, where she majored in both Art History and Philosophy, and minored in Women and the Arts. While at St. Catherine University, she held…

Kaylee Kelley

Kaylee Kelley is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on 19th century French art. Her research interests include material culture, interiority, and depictions of femininity. She previously studied Art History and English at the University of St Andrews, and has held internships in both London and Boston. Originally from Los Angeles, Kaylee continues to explore literature and its important intersections with all forms of art.

Martina Lentino

Martina Lentino is a master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts focusing on global modern and contemporary art, with a focus on the art of the Americas and photography. She earned her B.A. with Honors at the University of Chicago, where she studied Art History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Before coming to the IFA, Martina was Kress Interpretive Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she worked with Learning and Public Engagement, Textiles, and Conservation and Science on interpretive planning and research for textile exhibitions.

Janelle Miniter

Janelle Miniter is a Master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts. Her research focuses on the Russian avant-garde and examines the utilization of art as a political vehicle that reshapes culture and society during periods of revolution. She also studies the cross-cultural legacy between the East and West and the unique synthesis of these two traditions in Russian art, particularly in paintings and textiles. Before joining the IFA, Janelle worked as the Exhibitions Manager at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) for four years. During her tenure, she executed over a dozen exhibitions and curated MODA’s most popular exhibit,…

Madeleine Morris

Madeleine Morris is a master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on modern and contemporary art. After graduating Vassar College cum laude with a B.A. in Studio Art and Italian, she has worked for the past four years as the director of the gallery Davis & Langdale Company, New York. In that position, she collaborated on exhibitions of contemporary artists like Sheila Hicks and Janet Malcolm and co-curated exhibitions of artworks by Anne Ryan, Gwen John, and Albert York, among others. She previously held internships at the Clocktower Gallery and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Leigh Peterson

Leigh Peterson is a master’s candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on 20th and 21st century American art and photography. Her interests include Modernism, Realism, ‘Outsider’ art, Public art, historiography and the history of museums and collecting. She achieved her B.A. in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College and held internships at The Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. More recently, Leigh worked in New York City as a researcher for the art advisory, Morgan Walker Fine Art, as well as for the Sotheby’s Preferred department as a client liaison.