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…

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,’…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…