Jason Watson, mixed media
Fall 2006 Semester

Jason Watson is a visual artist living in Lambertville, New Jersey and working in the greater New York, Philadelphia area. His work includes drawings, prints, and installations all concerned with the manipulation and narrative context of figurative imagery. Recently, Watson’s work has focused on documenting and reinterpreting figurative sculpture and historical artifacts from museums around the world. In these pieces the figure is distorted and juxtaposed against invented symbols and letters, setting up a design aesthetic rooted in cinema poster design, storybook illustration, and 19th century photography.
Watson received his MFA from the State University of New York at Purchase in 2002. He has worked as a graphic and exhibitions designer for the Wildlife Conservation Society and has taught at Pace University, both in New York City. Most recently, Watson received a one year keyholder residency position at the Lower East Side Printshop in New York. He has also participated in residency programs at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Cooper Union Summer Emerging Artists Residency Program. His work was most recently included in “3+3 = Artists in Residence” at the Newark Museum of Art in Newark, New Jersey and can been seen in the upcoming exhibit “Drawing Stage” at City Without Walls this coming September, also in Newark.

Melissa Dean, printmaking & mixed media
Spring 2007 Semester

Melissa Dean is an artist and St. Mary's alumna with a BA in studio art (concentration in photography). She received her M.F.A in Printmedia from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where until recently she taught courses in printmaking and digital art. Previously, she worked at non-profit art studio Pyramid Atlantic, as a designer, registrar and instructor. Her prints, paintings and installations are concerned with a representation of a hyper-visual culture, through the lens of consumer objects. Whether reduced to their simplest form or layered into chaos, the images are representations of representations, and therefore no longer any kind of physical object, but the idea of and the desire for the object. Recent exhibitions include   "Spun From The Web" and "I Saw You" at   Gallery 2 in Chicago, IL. She had a solo show titled: "The Shape of Things" and group show "Heat Index" at Peter Miller Gallery in   Chicago, IL and was included in the "International Student Biennial" at the Museum of Skopje in Macedonia.

To see more of her work go to: http://www.mdeanstudio.com   or http://www.petermillergallery.com .