Photography
As a member of the photography program you will explore aesthetic and conceptual perspectives of photography with students who are working in diverse areas of personal image-making. You will join a department that is recognized as among the best in the country. The program is active in darkroom and lightroom production and provides strong grounding in professional lighting, and you will work extensively to develop your digital and Photoshop skills.
A preeminent faculty of educators who are exploring, producing and exhibiting their art nationally and internationally will provide you with current practical information, aesthetic knowledge and professional skills.
You will be exposed to all modes of contemporary fine art photographic practice, including narrative, landscape, portrait, documentary and expanded photographic works, including installations and emerging relationships between the still and moving image. The elective program is developed in conjunction with core curriculum instruction to provide a variety of methods for you to develop your personal aesthetic approach to photography.
Photography Faculty
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Patrick Clancy, professor and chair of digital filmmaking and photography
Patrick Clancy, chair of digital filmmaking and photography, is an artist working with photography and digital media. He has received...
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Patrick Clancy, chair of digital filmmaking and photography, is an artist working with photography and digital media. He has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Capital Foundation and the Missouri Arts Council.
Clancy was a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation's Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, and recently participated in the Harvestworks Artist-in Residence Program. He was a founding member of Pulsa, a collaborative group of artists that pioneered early electronic and interactive computer art through viewer-activated light and sound and video installations.
His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Visual Studies Workshop, Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, Camerawork, San Francisco Cinemathque and the Photographic Resource Center. His current projects explore different aspects of time as a medium and experience within the still and moving image.
Clancy co-curates “Electromediascope,” an international survey of contemporary experimental film, video and new media with Gwen Widmer as part of the modern and contemporary art department at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
He holds a bachelor of science degree from Pratt Institute and B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Yale University.
For more information, visit www.patrickclancy.org or www.thewritingmachine.org. Contact: pclancy@kcai.edu
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Gary Sutton, professor
Gary Sutton, professor of photography and digital filmmaking, joined KCAI in 1975. From 2001 to 2007 he was dean of faculty at the...
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Gary Sutton, professor of photography and digital filmmaking, joined KCAI in 1975. From 2001 to 2007 he was dean of faculty at the college. He has shown his work regionally and nationally. He received a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship to photograph in Hungary and an MIAA/NEA Photography Fellowship and a Mellon Grant to support his photographic pursuits. His work is in many collections, including the Denver Art Museum, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum and the American Century collection.
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Dwight Frizzell, associate professor
Dwight Frizzell, an alumnus of KCAI, is an internationally recognized artist whose interdisciplinary work combines video, performance,...
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Dwight Frizzell, an alumnus of KCAI, is an internationally recognized artist whose interdisciplinary work combines video, performance, installation, music, audio art and writing.
Collaborative in nature, his projects emphasize research and a commonality between the fine and performing arts. "The Irish Wilderness: A Phantasmic Meditation" received a Golden Reel Award. "Center of the World," from Frizzell's work about his boyhood neighbor, Harry S. Truman, was featured in the Peabody-awarded "Lost and Found Sound" series broadcast on National Public Radio.
His art pieces have been shown at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris ("Sunset Event"), the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam ("Harry's Shadow"), the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm ("Aldous Huxley's Signature") and the Red Rose in London ("Anamnesis"). His recent collaborative work repurposes military technology for art making (Sonic Force for A10 Warthog Attack Planes, Military Band and Mixed Chorus and H for Thermonuclear Device and Remote Ensemble). Currently, with composer Michael Henry, Frizzell is developing an opera based on the life of Charles Darwin.
In addition to his B.F.A. degree from KCAI, he holds a terminal fine arts degree in Sound Design from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Contact: 816-802-3327 or dfrizzell@kcai.edu
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Diana Heise, assistant professor
Diana Heise’s practice engages video, photography, performance, installation, film, writing, sculpture, public intervention and...
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Diana Heise’s practice engages video, photography, performance, installation, film, writing, sculpture, public intervention and sound. Heise’s work is invested in exploring psychological states and creating a free space for contemplation that lends itself to the promotion of awareness and non-violence. Her work has been exhibited galleries and festivals internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum, the Film Anthology Archives, Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, New York, and the DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival, Brooklyn, N.Y. She is also a recipient of a Performance Art Fund Grant from the Franklin Furnace Inc. as well as a Presidential Fellowship at the American University in Cairo.
Heise is currently a resident artist at Review Studios in Kansas City, Mo. She has spoken about her work in venues such as the Parsons School of Art and Design, the H&R Block Artspace and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. After receiving a research grant from Vassar College, she published her research on Slovene art collectives in Global and Local Art Histories, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Her curatorial projects include exhibitions with artists such as Aziz + Cucher, Julia Jacquette and Karen Rifas. She holds an M.F.A. degree in photography, video and related media from the School of Visual Arts and a B.A. degree in art history from Vassar College. She lives and works in Kansas City, Mo., and North Hero, Vt. For more information, please visit www.dianaheise.com.
Contact: dheise@kcai.edu
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Cyan Meeks, assistant professor
Cyan Meeks is a video artist, independent filmmaker, community organizer, curator and published media theorist. Over the past two...
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Cyan Meeks is a video artist, independent filmmaker, community organizer, curator and published media theorist. Over the past two decades, she has obtained international success in both the fine art world as well as within the film and television industries. This year her work was presented at the Sundance Film Festiva, and she led the development of an after-school video production program for inner-city high school students and published the book “Ambient Media.” She is co-founder of The Mercy Seat Gallery located in Kansas City’s Crossroads District where she has been curator for more than 30 exhibitions and was awarded a grant by the National Parks Service to create a permanent video installation for Key Biscayne National Park’s visitor center.
Meeks received her B.F.A. in photography and new media from the Kansas City Art Institute, and she studied for her M.F.A. at the California Institute of the Arts in Live Action and completed her M.F.A. in media studies at the State University of New York. She has received first place awards from American Film Institute, Winslow International Film Festival and New York Independent Film Festival. Meeks is also a published art critic for Review Magazine.