Faculty of Studio Arts and Technology

The faculty of the Studio Arts and Technology program at Purdue is composed of active members of the design community with a national and international exhibition record.

Eli Craven

Assistant Professor of Photography

Eli Craven is an Assistant Professor of Photography in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance. He holds a MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BFA in Photography from Boise State University. Craven’s research resides in the critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death. He works conceptually with photographic images, both found and original, by re-evaluating the physical and psychological potential of the picture through sculptural and digital interventions. Craven’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Most recently at Feinkunst Krüger Gallery in Hamburg, Germany and the Biennial of Contemporary Art Maia in Portugal. His work has also been widely published. Select publications and clients include Philosophie Magazine, The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Gestalten Publishing Berlin, Penguin Random House Barcelona, and The Paris National Opera. More information on Craven’s work can be found on his website www.elicraven.com.

Katherine Dean

Continuing Lecturer of Photography

Katherine Dean is a Continuing Lecturer of Photography in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance. She holds an MFA in Photography from Memphis College of Art and a BFA in Photography from the University of North Florida. Dean’s work exist at the merger of traditional and contemporary photography. Her research combines modern ideas and imagery with historic processes and/or manipulating traditional processes to explore the relationship between time, memory, and space. Dean continues to redefine the traditional methods in which photography is presented, working heavily with photographic installations and sculptures. Her work has been exhibited extensively at the national level and has won several exhibition awards. More information on Dean’s work can be found on her website at www.katherinedeanstudio.com.

Charles Gick

Professor of Painting, Drawing, and Installation Art //  2D Extended Media

Charles A. Gick is a Professor of Art in the Department of Art and Design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he teaches painting, drawing, and installation art. He holds a MFA from Northwestern University and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. As an interdisciplinary artist, Gick combines video, performance, painting, photography and assemblage and has received national and international recognition for his work. He was the first recipient of the Purdue University Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Samples of his previous exhibitions include, solo installations: “Three Clouds in Waiting” at the Luminary Center for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri, and “Waiting,” an installation exhibited at the Carriage House, Long Island Center for Experimental Art, Islip Art Museum. Gick has also exhibited his work in several international group exhibitions in countries such as Varna, Bulgaria, and Kansk, Russia. He was also selected as the only US representative to be included in “Curated Special Selections from Videoholica,” which was exhibited in Belgrade, Serbia, Milan, Italy, and Copenhagen, Denmark. He has presented artist lectures and academic research nationally and internationally. For more information, please visit Professor Gick’s artist website at www.charlesgick.com.

Robert Mahorney

Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing //  2D Extended Media

Robert Mahorney is currently an Associate Professor of Art in the Department of Art and Design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Areas of specialty are that of Painting and Drawing. Before coming to Purdue, he also taught at Notre Dame University. College degrees have been acquired at both the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Arizona. Robert has exhibited his work extensively throughout the country.

Shannon McMullen

Associate Professor of Integrated Studio Arts and American Studies //  Arts, Culture and Technology

Dr. McMullen is a jointly appointed Assistant Professor in the School of Visual and Performing Arts and in American Studies at Purdue University. She received a PhD in sociology from the University of California, San Diego in 2007. Her current research interests and creative endeavors focus on relations between nature and technology, the creation of installations and artifacts to produce temporary social spaces, and engagement with public visual cultures. Collaboration and interdisciplinarity shape her research and practice [read more].

Jessica Mohl

Limited-term lecturer of Jewelry and Metalsmithing

Jessica Mohl is a limited-term lecturer of Jewelry and Metalsmithing in the Department of Art and Design at the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University. She earned her BFA in Fine Arts and Crafts with an emphasis in Metalsmithing from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2003 and her MFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the University of North Texas in 2007. In her metalwork, she explores the beauty and mystery of growth and cycles in the natural world. Her work has been shown in national and international exhibitions and was included in the book 500 Metal Vessels. More information about Jessica’s work can be found on her website at www.jessicamohl.com.

Jennifer Scheuer

Visiting Assistant Professor

Jennifer Scheuer is a Visiting Assistant Professor in printmaking and the foundations drawing coordinator. Scheuer received her graduate degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (MFA Studio Art: Printmaking Concentration), an undergraduate degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead (BFA in Studio Art, Art History Minor). Scheuer also attended the Professional Printer Training Program at the Tamarind Institute, University of New Mexico, and was the Printmaking Specialist at Cornell University for three years. Her artistic research includes themes of the human body, history, gender, spirituality, and medicine. Recent artwork and lectures focus on The Doctrine of Signatures, a theory that the interconnections of the world are reflected visually and reflect different forms of knowledge. Scheuer exhibits nationally and internationally, with recent invitations as a visiting artist to several universities, and as an artist-in-residence to St Michael’s Print Shop in St John’s NL, and E. Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland. More information about Scheuer’s work can be found on her website at jenniferscheuer.com.

Christine Wuenschel

Associate Professor of Drawing //  2D Extended Media

Christine Wuenschel is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts in the Department of Art and Design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University. She teaches life drawing, painting, and serves as the department’s Director of Graduate Studies. Wuenschel received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Akron in 2004 and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from Arizona State University in 2008. She is a figurative artist whose work explores the gestural expressive nature of drawing media usually on a larger than life-size scale. Wuenschel is most recognized for her large drawings dealing with nudity, identity, and body image. Her work has won several exhibition awards and continues to appear in both national and international group and solo exhibitions including Drawing Discourse: 7th Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing at S. Tucker Cooke Gallery at University of North Carolina-Asheville; The Derwent Art Prize at The Mall Galleries in London, England; and Kink: The Seduction of Art at Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, California. More information on Wuenschel’s work can be found on her website at  www.christinewuenschel.com.

Fabian Winkler

Associate Professor of Integrated Studio Arts //  Arts, Culture and Technology

Fabian Winkler is an Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University where he initiated and developed the area of Electronic and Time-Based Art in 2006. He holds degrees from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG)/ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany and UCLA, Department of Design|Media Arts, Los Angeles, USA. Since 2011, Winkler has worked collaboratively with Dr. Shannon McMullen on a series of artworks and strategies at the intersection of nature and technology defined by the artists as “Critical Gardening,” exploring the premise that gardens express ideas, ideologies and social relations [read more].

Sigrid Zahner

Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts //  Craft and Materials

Sigrid Zahner is an associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University and is head of the ceramics program there. In addition to teaching both graduate and undergraduate level ceramics, Sigrid has taught undergraduate sculpture courses, textile courses, and co-taught the graduate level installation class in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue.

Sigrid’s work is represented in several museums and collections, including the Grimmerhus Museum, Danish National Museum of Ceramic Art, Copenhagen, Denmark, The NAU Museum in Arizona, The Copia Museum, Napa, CA, Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center Skaelskor, Denmark, and the Diane and Sandy Besser Collection. In addition to showing in the USA, Sigrid has shown all over the world including in Japan, Denmark, UK, and has shown at NCECA, The National Council of Education in the Ceramic Arts.