Otis College of Art and Design Welcomes Five New Full-Time Faculty Members
Otis College’s more than 430 full- and part-time faculty members are practicing professionals in their fields—award-winning artists, animators, web designers, architects, illustrators, filmmakers, graphic designers, fashion designers, community artists, toy designers, writers, and poets. These five new full-time faculty members join the school’s diverse group of passionate educators dedicated to students’ growth and success. “The faculty we are welcoming this year bring their own impressive professional experiences and practices to the Fine Arts and Foundation programs, expanding the diversity and perspectives of the entire faculty community,” says Interim Provost Kim Russo. “We are excited that they are joining us and look forward to their contributions.”
After teaching part-time at Otis since 2009, INGRID CALAME now is a full-time painting instructor in the Fine Arts Department. Calame is known for her colorful paintings, made from tracings of human detritus taken from the ground, that tease out the boundary between abstraction and representation. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Kunstmuseum San Gallen in Switzerland, and she has participated in group exhibitions such as the 2019 Havana Biennial in Cuba, and the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Calame has received grants and residency fellowships from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, among others. Calame earned her BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Her monographs include Being Born (Snoëck, Germany), Ingrid Calame: Trace (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh), Constellations (James Cohan Gallery, NY), and Ingrid Calame (Deitch Projects, NY).
EMMA KEMP is a new full-time interdisciplinary instructor in the Foundation Department after having worked part-time at Otis since 2015. Her hybrid practice examines fringe ideologies, intentional communities, and cultural pariahs. She works collaboratively as part of the art and design duo EarlGravy, co-founded the femme-first multimedia publishing platform WhichWitchLA; and established Bakersfield™, a research lab and curatorial platform looking at things in the distance. Kemp has received various recognitions, including a Utah Humanities Foundation Delmont R. Oswald Fellowship, and an Ithaca College New Voices Literary Festival Award. She received a BA in Art and Design from Central Saint Martins in London, UK, and an MFA in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. She has authored several books, including Blue Pool / Cecelia (iTi Press).
COLE (NICOLE) JAMES now joins the Foundation Department’s 2-D Design Area as a full-time instructor, after being part of the Otis community in a part-time capacity since 2013. She is an interdisciplinary artist with work that explores the intersections of digital production and the analog collecting of lived experiences. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Miami, Korea, and throughout Los Angeles, including the show “Holding Half the Sky” at Roberts Projects. She has received the Alfred B. Friedman Grant, the Walker Parker Artist Fellowship, the Mignon Schweitzer Award, and is the 2019-2020 Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Artist in Residence. James received her BA in painting from California State University, San Bernardino, and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. In addition to her art practice, James is a human rights advocate and community collaborative partner, having worked with organizations such as Liberated Arts Collective, and the California African American Museum.
The Fine Arts Department adds full-time instructor JENNIFER MOON, a conceptual artist and life-artist whose interdisciplinary work investigates organizing systems and how these various systems are entangled, inscribed, transmitted, performed, and perpetuated through bodies (human, nonhuman, material, immaterial). Drawing from the deeply personal, blending a mix of queer life, science, self-help, popular culture, and fantasy, Moon’s work mobilizes the potential to reconfigure our relationship to power, to reignite the social and political imaginaries, and to stimulate change. Moon has performed and exhibited throughout the United States and internationally at such venues as The Getty Center, the Hammer Museum, Transmission Gallery (Glasgow, Scotland), and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces (Melbourne, Australia). Moon earned a BA from UCLA and an MFA from ArtCenter College of Design, and is the recipient of the Korea Arts Foundation of America Award (2016), the Alpert/Ucross Residency Prize (2015), the Mohn Public Recognition Award, and the CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists (2013).
LIZ (ELIZABETH) NURENBERG now joins the Foundation Department’s 3-D Design Area as a full-time instructor after having worked in a part-time capacity since 2013. Her handheld sculptures explore whimsy, intimacy and awkwardness. Nuremberg’s most recent solo exhibition opened at the Holter Museum in Helena, Montana this past August. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at such venues as Elephant Art Space (Los Angeles, CA), HilbertRaum Gallery (Berlin, Germany), and the Torrance Art Museum. Nurenberg received an artist's residency at Ox-Bow School of Art, the Helen B. Dooley Fellowship at Claremont Graduate University, and the California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. She received a BFA from Grand Valley State University and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. She is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles, and has acted as co-director for the past three years.
We are excited to have these new faculty members join Otis’s tight-knit community and help propel our students towards creative, academic, and professional success.