DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART HISTORY
FACULTY Studio Art
Ricky Allman, MFA
Assistant Professor
Painting
FA 206, Phone: 816-235-2995
Web site
allmanrw@umkc.edu
Ricky Allman makes landscape and architecturally based paintings that investigate themes such as the apocalypse, religious extremism, and large scale environmental and social catastrophes.
Ricky has exhibited his work nationally in galleries throughout the country including the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Lemon Sky Projects in Miami, Raid Projects in Los Angeles, and the Scope and Pulse Art fairs in New York. Ricky was included in Netdiver’s 2008 Best of the Year and Wallpaper Magazine’s artists to watch in 2008. Ricky’s work has also been featured in New American Paintings, Beautiful Decay Magazine, and Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture by Front Forty Press.
Ricky received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007 and a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2005.
Barry Anderson, MFA
Associate Professor
Electronic Media
FA 115, Phone: 816-235-2988
Web site
andersonbs@umkc.edu
Barry Anderson received his MFA from Indiana University Bloomington and his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin.
His work in video, animation, and installation centers around issues of isolation and disconnection in our cultural past, present, and future. His work has been shown extensively nationally and internationally with recent exhibitions at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Marty Walker Gallery, Byron C. Cohen Gallery, and White Flag Projects.
In August 2009 he will debut a city-wide video installation in Syracuse, NY, curated by Light Work with participation from the Everson Museum of Art and Syracuse University.
He is currently an artist-in-residence at Review Studios in downtown Kansas City.
Elijah Gowin, MFA
Associate Professor
Photography
FA 114, Phone: 816-235-5301
Web site
gowinp@umkc.edu
Elijah Gowin has been teaching
photography at UMKC since 2002. His classes at UMKC include all levels of
photography, both traditional and digital. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from
Davidson College, North Carolina and earned an MFA in photography from the
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. His work, black and white fictional
tableaux, references the folk rituals and cultural history of the Southeastern
United States.
He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and he is currently an artist-in-residence at Review Studios in downtown Kansas City.
Laura G Hurcomb, MA
Adjunct Instructor, Photography
FA 209, Phone: 913-208-2749
Web site
hurcombl@umkc.edu
Laura Hurcomb received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art from the Kansas City Art Institute. She obtained her Master of Art degree from the University of Missouri in Kansas City. She has been teaching photography at UMKC since 2004. Encouraging experimentation she teaches a combination of traditional darkroom and digital photographic techniques. Currently she also works as a portrait and wedding photographer where she introduced digital photography to traditional film based studios. Her fine art work plays with the subject of identity. She comments on identity within self, gender, family, race and her relation to the greater society speaking from stories of origin, blame and loss of innocence. Her work is held in both private and museum collections nationally and internationally.
Scott Seebart, MFA
Adjunct Instructor, Foundations
scottseebart@yahoo.com
Scott Seebart is a painter who works from life. His paintings of the still life, landscape and the figure have most recently been on display at the Unit 5 Gallery in Kansas City and Longview Community College. He has also shown at the LoRiver Gallery in New York and the American Museum of Art in Philadelphia.
Scott Seebart received his BFA from the University of Minnesota and his MFA from the University of Iowa. He also studied at the University of Amsterdam and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. As well as teaching at UMKC, he also teaches painting and drawing at the Kansas City Art Institute and Longview Community College.
Craig A. Subler, MFA
Professor, Printmaking
Principal Graduate Advisor - Studio Art
FA 202, Phone: 816-235-2985
Web site
sublerc@umkc.edu
Craig Allen Subler received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Dayton Art Institute. He obtained his Master of Art and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the University of Iowa. As the former UMKC Gallery of Art Director he curated more than 80 exhibitions and edited 15 exhibition catalogues that have received national and international attention.
Also an active member of the studio department his prints and paintings can be found in both regional and national art museum collections including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Dayton Art Institute, Mulvane Art Museum, Baldwin Wallace College, Western Illinois University Museum, The Hallmark Collection and American Century Investors Inc. At the University of Missouri -Kansas City, he oversees the printmaking program and the Hand Print Press.
Kati Toivanen, MFA
Associate Professor & Department Chair
Electronic Media
FA 107, Phone: 816-235-6203
Web site
toivanenk@umkc.edu
Kati Toivanen received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She came to UMKC in the Fall of 1998 from Columbia College Chicago, where she had been teaching since 1992.
Ms. Toivanen is a conceptual artist, whose practice incorporates various means of expression. In her imagery, objects, installations, and video play and games are the vehicles for exploring personal history. Toivanen, a 2001 Charlotte Street Award Winner and internationally exhibited artist, has been reviewed in Art in America. Currently her site-specific commission “Commemorating the Everyday, Today” is on display in Kansas City, MO, on 12th Street in the City Center Square Post Office windows.
At UMKC Professor Toivanen most recently has taught the following courses: Art 235: Digital Imaging I, Art 335A: Digital Imaging II and Art 499WI: Senior Seminar. She is on the graduate faculty and advises several graduate students.
Paul Tosh, MFA
Associate Professor
Graphic Design
FA B8, Phone: 816-235-6204
toshp@umkc.edu
Paul Tosh has been teaching graphic design and typography at UMKC since 2001 after earning his Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communications at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Before entering the academic world, he owned a successful design studio, Paul Tosh Design, in Nashville, TN., working with clients such as Giant Records, MCA Records, PICA, Ray Stevens Music and many others.
Along with his responsibilities as principle instructor of Graphic Design at UMKC, Tosh also continues professional practice through his design studio, PDG* [*pretty darn good] Design, specializing in brand identity, general design of all areas, poster design, illustration and typographic design, having won local regional and national awards for his work. PDG* specializes in offering its services to non-profit organizations, recognizing the need by these organizations for well-crafted communication messages that they often cannot afford.
Professor Tosh is involved with many of the area and national design organizations. His memberships and committee service includes the Kansas City Ad Club, Art+Copy Club, The national and Kansas City chapter of the AIGA, the Kansas City Freelance Exchange, the University and College Designers Association, and Typographica. His professional affiliations and practice allow him to bring practical and current design knowledge to the classroom.
Tosh continues his love affair with poster art, both through the contemporary medium of the computer and through traditional letterpress and block printing. An internship with Hatch Show Print in Nashville, TN and further collaboration with Hatch on personal projects, has advanced his interested in this traditional means of graphic design production, both from a "fine" art standpoint, and as a teaching tool. Tosh’s interest in graphic design history and typographic practice and theory is a continuing part of his teaching and research. His current research involves how historical art practices and "-isms" has a direct relationship and influence on contemporary design practice. He also is exploring the idea “vernacular” as a unique visual language. He has presented papers centered on these issues at conferences such as the College Art Association Conference and the Mind the Map Conference on Design in Istanbul, Turkey.
At UMKC, Professor Tosh is in charge of a re-invigorated Graphic Design emphasis. He teaches or supervises classes such as Introduction to Typography, Graphic Design I, II, and III, Advanced Typography, Design Seminar, Graphic Design Internships and Independent Studies. He also does much of the undergraduate advising and is deeply involved in recruitment for the program.
Davin Watne
Adjunct Intructor , Foundations
Phone: 913-220-9919
watned@umkc.edu
Davin Watne’s work in paintings and installations explores the colliding paths and shared habitat between large mammals and human traffic. His interest also extends beyond visual art into the worlds of music, fashion, advertising, and vehicles. He holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institiute.
Davin has exhibited nationally and locally with recent exhibitions at Rio Hondo College in California, Mikor inc. Gallery in San Francisco, Webster University in St. Louis, and The Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City. Davin’s work is in the Oppenhiem collection at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and has had work featured in Art in America.
He is currently a resident at the Review Studios, and a former Charlotte Street Award winner. His collaboration with artist Dylan Mortimor was the first public art commission for the Art In The Loop project in downtown Kansas City. Davin teaches foundations level 2D design and design multi-media
