Artist Advisory Committee
Advisory Committee Members
Dr. Sara Wong
Dr. Sara Wong works at the intersection of scholarship, the arts, and international politics. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE), where her AHRC-funded doctoral research examined contemporary dissident art from post-coup Myanmar. Curatorial practice is central to her methodology; in 2024, she curated ‘Not Another Protest Exhibition‘ at LSE‘s Atrium Gallery, featuring exiled Burmese artist Chuu Wai. Her curatorial work engages artists exploring displacement, exile, and migration—particularly within authoritarian contexts and the East/Southeast Asian diaspora. She has conducted extensive international fieldworkand worked with over 20 artists and collectives across the world. Sara has served as a Research & Policy Fellow with IA&A on cultural policy initiatives with Sunnylands and advises ICAAD’s Artivism residency program. Currently, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland, teaching courses on international politics, authoritarian protest, and visual culture.
Julia Bloom
Julia Bloom is the director and curator of Freight Gallery, an alternative micro-exhibition space in a historic freight elevator in Washington, DC. Bloom is a practicing artist whose selected exhibitions include Permission Slips at Addison/Ripley Fine Art and Inside Outside, Upside Down Invitational Juried Show at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; Micro-Monuments, a traveling exhibition at the Salzland Museum in Schoenebeck, Germany and the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC; and Sculpture Now 2014 at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC. Five of her drawings are on exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC.
Bloom lives and works in Washington, DC. She studied piano and composition at Berklee College of Music, and visual art at the Boston Museum School and Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work includes drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Devika Strother
Devika Strother is an arts leader and cultural strategist dedicated to expanding access and opportunity for artists. She is the Executive Director of Vika Visual Arts Association, a nonprofit supporting artists through exhibitions, professional development, and community-centered programming. She is also the Founder of Vika Gallery, a contemporary art space in Washington, DC, that champions innovative voices and presents thought-provoking exhibitions. Through her work, Strother advances a vision for a more inclusive and sustainable arts ecosystem where artists can thrive.
Kaitlin Jensco
Kaitlin Jencso is a photographer who documents moments of everyday life to communicate intimate and interior experiences. With an eye to cinema, she seeks out beauty in commonplace scenes, focusing on a pop of color, a glimmer of light, a flutter of material. While she captures moments of light and grace, her practice is methodical, the result of diligent shooting and processing to isolate ideas and develop them as themes or installations.
Jencso won the Focal Point award of merit from the Maryland Federation of Art and is a two-time winner of FotoWeek D.C. She served as a Hamiltonian fellow in 2018–2020. She is a graduate of the College of Southern Maryland and received her BFA in fine art photography from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. She lives and works in Washington, D.C.
Zofie King
Zofie King (b. Lodz, Poland, raised in Kleve, Germany) is an artist based in Arlington, Virginia. She earned a BA in psychology in 2002 before pursuing studies in interdisciplinary craft at Towson University, interior design at MICA, and exhibition design at the Corcoran.
King has maintained a dedicated studio practice since 2011, working in found object sculpture and water-based media paintings. Her gothic surrealist work creates psychological narratives within decaying architectural spaces.
She has had solo exhibitions at Second Street Gallery, Fred Schnider Gallery, Hillyer, NVCC Margaret W. Fisher Art Gallery, DC Arts Center, Mount St. Mary’s University Gallery, Gallery Blue Door, and CHAW, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions along the East Coast. She was a member of the Sparkplug Collective (2017–2019) and the Washington Sculptors Group (2018—2022). Her work is held in numerous private collections, as well as the DC Art Bank.
Dr. Lauren Davidson
Dr. Lauren Davidson is an independent curator and founder of Museum Nectar Art Consultancy, a practice dedicated to elevating emerging and mid-career artists through exhibitions, art advisory, and cultural programming. Her curatorial work explores materiality, memory, identity, and the evolving dimensions of the Black experience within contemporary art, fostering meaningful dialogue between artists, institutions, and audiences.
Davidson has curated exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, the University of Maryland’s David C. Driskell Center, DC Arts Center, IA&A at Hillyer, and Loyola University Maryland. Alongside her curatorial practice, she advises private and corporate collectors in building thoughtful collections that support contemporary artists and reflect diverse cultural perspectives. She is an active member of the Washington, D.C., arts community and has collaborated with organizations including Tephra ICA, IA&A at Hillyer, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Davidson holds a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University and is based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
Anne C. Smith
Anne C. Smith (b. Syracuse, NY) is an artist based in Washington, DC. Her work in drawing and screenprinting considers the relationship between landscape, home and imagination. Smith studied silkscreen printmaking with Master Printmaker Lou Stovall while working as his studio assistant. She is currently a Screenprint Studio Associate at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, MD. She has enjoyed working on large collaborative printmaking projects and has taught drawing at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College.
Her practice is enriched by poetry, woodworking studies at the Penland School of Craft and artist residencies with: Artist Mother Studio at Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC), the Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA) and the Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA). Smith is represented by Adah Rose Gallery.
Laurel Lukaszewski
Laurel Lukaszewski is a Washington, DC-area-based artist who creates installations and sculptures primarily from clay. Many of Laurel’s works are composed of extruded forms resembling three-dimensional line drawings or calligraphic brushstrokes. Others are installations of hand-formed objects that reflect imagery from nature focusing on the idea of a moment captured in time—a nod to the concept of ichi-go ichi-e, originally from the Japanese tea ceremony. In addition to a love of the rhythms and patterns found in nature, her work reflects her study of, and work with, Japan over the past three decades. Laurel has exhibited in venues across the country, including the DC metropolitan area, Chicago, New York, Miami, Palm Beach, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Houston, Seattle, and Tulsa. In 2015, her work was exhibited at the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of the State Department’s Art in Embassies Program. Laurel is the owner and director of White Point Studio, LLC in Mt. Rainier, MD, which she established in the fall of 2014.
Jarvis Dubois
Jarvis Dubois has over 20 years combined collections management and curatorial experience, currently at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (since 2002) as a Museum Specialist. While a student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he completed the Getty Center Summer Grant Program working at the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, CA. In addition, Jarvis has independently curated and consulted on many fine art exhibitions including: The Amistad Center for Art and Culture’s Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera (2007-2010) five-city traveling exhibition; Black Abstraction (2011) at Harmony Hall Regional Art Gallery in Fort Washington, MD, for the group Black Artists of DC; (in)Visible and (dis)Embodied: Repositioning the Marginalized (2014) as part of the Curatorial Initiative program at the District of Columbia Arts Center; Of Present Bodies (2014) at the Arlington Arts Center; Lest We Forget (2016) at Galerie Myrtis co-curated with Deirdre Darden; Root Work (2016) at Black Rock Center for the Arts; Face Forward (2018) and Senait & Nahom: The Peacemaker and the Comforter (2019), both co-curated with Gia Harewood at Carroll Square Gallery; and Pleasure’s Promise (2020-2021) at Culture House DC.
Jarvis also curated exhibitions for performance and multidisciplinary artist Sheldon Scott at the (e)merge art fair in Washington, DC, in October of 2013 and 2014. He is currently the curator for the multidisciplinary artist, Kokayi, during his artist-in-residency program at Nicholson Projects. He has written articles for the International Review of African American Art and is completing his M.A. in Art History at the City College of New York.
Nikki Brugnoli
Nikki Brugnoli is an artist, educator, and curator who received her BFA from Seton Hill University (2004) and her MFA from The Ohio State University (2007). Brugnoli serves on the faculty at Flint Hill School in Oakton, VA. She teaches Studio Art in the Upper School and runs the Art School/College recruiting program. Previously, she served on the faculty at George Mason University and was the Assistant Graduate Programs Coordinator and Graduate Advisor in the School of Art. In addition, she helped coordinate Visual Voices, Visiting Artist Program. Nikki was the Exhibitions Coordinator for the Art Lab at the Lorton Workhouse, Lorton, VA and currently serves on the Hillyer IA&A Advisory Council, Washington D.C. Brugnoli is currently exhibiting at The Athenaeum: Forces Fleeting with Anne C. Smith and VisArt: Suspended Inter-Spaces; group exhibition.
Inactive Members
Khánh H. Lê
Khánh H. Lê (b. 1981, Long Dinh, Vietnam, who lives and works in Washington, D.C.), creates mixed-media collages based on deteriorating photographs and collective memories of his personal and familial history as refugees living in Vietnamese internment camps. Lê graduated with a BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and an MFA from Syracuse University in 2008. After graduate school, he moved to Washington, making it his new studio base. His work has been exhibited at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey, and locally at the Smithsonian’s Portrait Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vox Populi, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. Lê received 2nd place as a finalist in the Bethesda Painting Awards 2018. In 2019 Lê was a semifinalist for the Sondheim Artscape Prize in Baltimore and a semifinalist for the Bethesda Trawick Prize in 2020. A finalist once again in the Bethesda Painting Prize 2020. Lê was selected as a finalist for the Smithsonian’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2022 at the National Portrait Gallery. In addition to art prizes, Lê has been commissioned by Arlington Public Art, Arlington Transit: Art, Smithsonian Freer Gallery, Meta Open Arts (formerly Facebook Open Arts), Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and Frederick Arts Council.
Wesley Clark
Wesley Clark received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Syracuse University and a Master of Fine Arts from The George Washington University. Clark is a conceptual artist creating narrative driven two and three dimensional works. His primary concerns are bolstering the spirit of African Americans, creating new angles at which to view and consider history and the contemporary moment.
Honorary Members
Cianne Fragione
Throughout her career, Cianne Fragione has followed a deep, irresistible instinct that impels her to combine materials and content in unexpected ways, achieving a full and sustained realization in art that embodies the most intimate kinds of encounters between nature and culture. Cianne was an Artist-in-Residence at DVI State Prison in Tracy, CA, from 1980-1983, with a project co-funded by the California Arts Council, Sacramento, and Williams James Association, Santa Cruz, CA. In 2005 she was a fellow through Spoleto Study Abroad in Spoleto, Italy; an Artist-in-Residence in Soaring Gardens, Laceyville, PA (a project of the Ora Lerman Trust, New York, NY), in 2010 and in 2012; and a two-month artist residency at Lo Studio dei Nipoti in Monasterace, Italy, a small Calabrian coastal town. Her art has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions (including traveling exhibitions) throughout the United States in California; New York; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Baltimore, MD; Washington DC; Boston; Louisville, KY; and Virginia, among others; and internationally in galleries and museum in Italy, as well as American embassies in Sofia, Bulgaria; and Vilnius, Lithuania; as part of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program.
John Paradiso
John Paradiso earned a BFA at the State University of New York (Purchase) and his MFA at the State University of New York (Buffalo). He is a mixed-media artist and describes his work as metaphorical and based upon such issues as identity, sexuality, health, and love. He has work in private and public collections, including the Kinsey Institute, and a portfolio of seven photographs in the National Picture Collection at the Library of Congress (AIDS portfolio). John has served for over twenty years as a health educator and caregiver in the HIV/AIDS community, where he developed educational programs and provided peer-based counseling. More recently he was an Artist-in-Residence at the Washington Hospital Center, working with adult cancer patients, their families and caregivers. He currently works for the Gateway Arts Center as their Arts Program and Facility Manager.
Cory Oberndorfer
Cory Oberndorfer is an artist fixated on nostalgia, American popular culture, and the joy of life’s simple pleasures. His work has been exhibited nationally, including at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, CA; Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC; and Flashpoint Gallery and G Fine Art, both in Washington, DC. He has received multiple Artist Fellowships and project grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and currently teaches as an adjunct instructor at George Washington University and at Montgomery College, Takoma Park. Oberndorfer received his BFA from Weber State University and his MFA from American University.
Pat Goslee
Pat Goslee has maintained an active studio practice in Washington, DC, producing work that has been acquired by numerous public and private collections, including the US Embassies in Nepal and Ethiopia and the City Hall Art Collection at the John A. Wilson Building. She has exhibited widely, showing at commercial venues, universities, alternative art spaces, and art fairs from Miami to New York City. Goslee is a 2009 recipient of a Visual Artist Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She has served on the board of directors for the Washington Arts Museum and DCAC. She holds an MFA from Catholic University and a BFA from the University of Georgia.
Joan Belmar
Joan Belmar was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1970. He left Chile for Spain at the age of 24. He began painting professionally in Spain, using the Catalan name Joan for his first name John. He came to Washington, DC, four years later in 1999, was granted permanent residency in the US based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003, and became a citizen in 2010. Joan Belmar is well known for his unique technique of 3-D painting, in which he combines his former painting and collage techniques with both painted and untreated Mylar/paper strips in circles and curvilinear shapes. This technique produces variations in transparency, as light and the viewer move in relation to the work. He was a Mayor’s Art Award Finalist in 2007 as an outstanding emerging artist in Washington, DC. The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities recognized him with an Artist Fellowship Program grant in 2009, and in 2011 he was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD. He is a two-time recipient of the Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in Visual Arts: Painting, in 2010 and 2013. Belmar’s work is part of many private and public collections, including the University of Maine Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection. In 2016 he won first place, from among 2240 received artworks, for best Original Work in the prestigious Osten Biennial of Drawing in Macedonia.