Alumni News
NATALIA RADZIK ’18
After graduating from the art program at Wagner College, I spent several years exploring new possibilities and developing my style. I created a series of black light paintings that I exhibited at local markets and art fairs, including a group show with Art Groove. Currently, I am a registrar for Friedman Benda, a contemporary design and fine art gallery in Manhattan, where I also oversee and coordinate all art repairs. I am grateful to my art professors, who exposed me to experiences such as attending a drawing marathon at the New York Studio School with the late Graham Nickson. Studying art at Wagner gave me the tools I needed to create the life I wanted. They pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and think out of the box, tapping into that inner drive of an artist.
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SHEALAGH BROWER ’24
While majoring in Film and Media at Wagner, I took advantage of the many opportunities to hone my skills both on and off campus. My internships included working as a Promotions Intern at NYC Arts Cypher, and as a Production Intern at Community Media of Staten Island. I also had the honor of working for Wagner’s Holocaust Center as a Videographer and Editor for two years. Throughout my four years in the FAM program, in addition to making my own work as a writer and director, I worked on multiple student projects in many different capacities, from acting to cinematography. These experiences, along with the feedback and support I got from my professors, helped prepare me for a career in the industry. I just wrapped from working as an Office Production Assistant for the HBO series And Just Like That…, and I’m currently freelancing for multiple companies, including RetailWire, for whom I just finished shooting and editing interviews featured at the annual NRF Conference at the Jacob Javitz Center.
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SIRENA LABURN ’09
During my time at Wagner I embraced New York City and the visual arts. I spent my weekends taking the ferry to art museums on my own, while many of the art and art history courses I took scheduled class trips to places like the Met, or art gallery hopping in Chelsea. What made my engagement with the Wagner Art Department so special were the professors who supported me in their classes, but also went above and beyond to help me secure internships at places like the Brooklyn Museum, and encouraged me to apply for the summer program at the New York Studio School, which changed the trajectory of my life. I later went on to complete my MFA at the New York Studio School, graduating in 2014. So much of the artist I am today, and my work history in commercial art galleries as well as art museums comes from my time at Wagner and the support I received from the professors within the Art Department.
KAYLA MORGAN ‘ 22
Kayla Morgan, and I am a 2022 graduate of Wagner College, where I earned a degree in Arts Administration with a minor in Dance. While my career has evolved in a direction different from the traditional Arts Administration path I initially anticipated, the knowledge and connections I developed have been instrumental in guiding me to my current role in the events industry. I currently work as a Corporate Events Specialist at Sparks, a Freeman Company, where I manage events ranging from intimate executive gatherings to large-scale conferences with over 20,000 attendees globally. The wide range of course offerings, valuable internship opportunities, and leadership experiences provided by Wagner’s Arts Administration program have been essential in preparing me for my professional journey
MARY SCHAFFER ’13
Arts Administration major Mary Schaffer (’13) received her Masters Degree in Art History at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London.
ASHLEY JAYE, ’09
Ashley graduated Wagner in 2009 as an Education/Fine Arts major. She began teaching as an elementary art teacher that September. Her second year teaching I was honored with teacher of the year, an award given to one teacher in every school in our school district. Wagner definitely influenced her teaching: Ashley notes, ” I loved my Ancient Egyptian art history course and infuse the knowledge I learned into many of my lessons with my students. My 5th graders make Egyptian portraits, my 3rd graders make an Egyptian sarcophagus, and my 2nd graders paint hieroglyphics.
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SHAUNA SORENSON ’10
Shauna Sorenson was accepted into the M.A. in Art History program at both the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and Hunter College.
Exhibit, July 2013 at ‘SNice Gallery in NYC
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ANNA HUDDLE ’15
Director of Education and Visitor Services at Neue Galerie New York, M.A. in Art History, Hunter College, forthcoming 2026.
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ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINEN,
Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a Finnish American photographer noted for his un-manipulated nude self-portraits in the landscape. Born in Helsinki in 1945, he moved with his family to America in 1951. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, he later attended Wagner College on Staten Island, majoring in English. After five years in the advertising business as a Madison Avenue copywriter, he discovered photography working on the Minolta camera account. “What happens inside your mind can happen inside a camera,” was the turning-point headline he wrote in 1970. A year later, studying with John Benson at the Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York, he began his self-portrait work.He received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Currently he is Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is also docent and visiting professor at the University of Art & Design Helsinki and École d’Art Appliqués in Vevey, Switzerland.
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DAMIEN DEMENTO
From Inside a Bad-Guy Wrestler, a Brutal Artist Screamed for Release
By COREY KILGANNON
Julie Glassberg for The New York Times, Phillip Thies, formerly known as Damien Demento, at the Tachi Gallery in TriBeCa, where a show of his paintings and sculptures opened on Thursday.
There was always something artistically sinister about Damien Demento, the loony thug who thrilled World Wrestling Federation fans in the early 1990s with his stringy Fu Manchu beard-mustache combo, bear-claw poncho and bad-guy persona.
A Salvador Dalí on steroids, equally adept at revving up bloodthirsty fans or body-slamming foes, Demento was the brainchild of the fertile and somewhat twisted mind of one Phillip Thies, who grew up a tough street kid in Brooklyn and on Staten Island with an outsize personality to match his physique. Behind Mr. Thies’s penchant for bedlam in the ring, though, was a keen artist who had been drawing, painting and sculpturing since childhood, and even through his adult years running with tough crowds, working construction, serving jail time and renting himself out as hired muscle.
A retrospective of Mr. Thies’s slightly-more-subdued other career is now on display at the Tachi Gallery in TriBeCa, where his paintings and sculptures are part of a joint exhibition with an artist called Uccello.
It is Mr. Thies’s first art show, and many of the pieces partake of the brutality, showmanship and braggadocio that infused his professional wrestling days.
As he walked through the gallery on Monday, chomping on an unlit cigar, Mr. Thies, 53, said that he hoped his show would be “an open slap to the art community,” but that he also hoped art world insiders would find his work provocative and sincere.
For more information click on the link…..
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/from-inside-a-bad-guy-wrestler-a-brutal-artist-screamed-for-release/
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ROBERT GERONIMO
Robert Geronimo completed his BA at Wagner College, while interning at Marvel Comics in New York City. He later received an MFA in illustration from FIT and an MA in Art History from Brooklyn College. Robert has given lectures and workshops at several universities, and currently lives in New York City where he teaches illustration and art history at Wagner and Brooklyn College.
MFA Fashion Institute of Technology; MA Brooklyn College; BA Wagner College
https://www.instagram.com/geronimodraws ; https://www.robertgeronimo.com ; https://www.youtube.com/c/GeronimoDraws
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COLLEEN A F VENABLE
Colleen A F Venable ’02 pens ‘Guinea Pig, Pet Shop Private Eye, Book 1: Hamster and Cheese’, with art by Stephanie Yue (Graphic Universe, 2010).
Venable’s first book is the first installment in a planned series of six graphic novels for children. It stars a crotchety guinea pig named Sasspants and a hyperactive hamster named Hamisher, who pushes the bookish pig into crime-solving when the “g” falls off Sasspants’s pet shop sign, transforming “GUINEA PIG” to “GUINEA PI.” “Venable’s story succeeds because of unique characters, a creative setting, and sharp humor,” says School Library Journal. A double major in studio art and English at Wagner who wrote and produced her own play for her senior thesis, Venable designs books for First Second Books, another graphic novel publisher. Her next project will be a longer teen graphic novel, slated for publication by First Second Books. Learn more about Venable at www.colleenaf.com.
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