Art & Art History Alumni

The Department of Art & Art History continues to foster��relationships with our graduates across the globe.��We recognize alumni��for their service, achievements and professional excellence in order to showcase them within the Art & Art History family.

Alumni, keep us informed! Please submit your updated contact information and career updates today to finearts@colorado.edu.

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Alumni in the News

Rick Silva

MFA, Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices (IMAP), 2007
Digital Art

My main motivation to attend CU was to study digital art with Prof Mark Amerika. The graduate teaching opportunities, access to professional equipment and facilities, and easy access to the Rocky Mountains also made it my top choice.��

A highlight was receiving a graduate research award for my multimedia internet art project titled SCREENFULL. The other recipients that year were all science PHDs, and it was affirming to be recognized at that level and context. SCREENFULL was recently featured in Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology book.

My newest project is a series of 8 videos titled CORES. They are a collaboration with Vancouver BC based artist Nicolas Sasoon. The online version premiered this fall and includes an accompanying essay by Elise Hunchuck and Jussi Parikka . An installation version of CORES will be shown at the Hors-Pistes exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris from Jan-Feb 2021.

Adam Sekuler

MFA, Film, 2017

Since the program consists of not just filmmakers, but artists across disciplines, cohort feedback would come from artists working not just in filmmaking, but in photography, ceramics, sculpture, print making, and painting. Moreover, this gave me access to professors working in those disciplines as well.

When I was looking at graduate programs, I applied to a number of schools where I knew the work of the faculty. CU, at the time, had a number of well known filmmakers; Jeanne Liotta, Phil Solomon, Alex Cox, and Reece August. I admired all of their work, but faculty reputation alone wasn't the deciding factor. Additionally, when I learned that my incoming film cohort would consist of just one other student, I couldn't believe it. Not only would all these wonderful artists become colleagues and mentors over the next few years, but I wouldn't have to struggle to get time with them. 91��, was unique in other ways as well.

I currently live in New Orleans teaching at Loyola University. My practice remains active with several projects in development. I recently received a major grant from POLIN, a Jewish museum in Poland, to make a new short film for an exhibition that will take place in April of 2022. Additionally, I'm in production on a new feature length documentary called The Flamingo, about a late in life sexual awakening of a 60 year woman in Salt Lake City. I also just completed a short experimental film exploring abandoning a project on the end of the world amidst a global pandemic.

Morgan Butts

MA, Art History, 2016

Access to courses that were relevant and faculty whose areas of study directly related to my own were my top priorities. 91�� had both of those things. Having the opportunity to work with Dr. James Córdova, and then Dr. Annette de Stecher in my second year, was the primary draw. I know my time working with them (among all of the other incredible faculty in the program) really elevated my work and helped develop critical thinking skills and theoretical framing that I still use today—both as an arts professional and as a person.

I look back and know I absolutely made the right choice. I couldn’t have asked for more supportive faculty. My interests are varied, and when I decide I want to do something, it’s difficult to talk me out of it. If there was something I wanted to do, even if it was unprecedented or part of an abnormal trajectory for an art history graduate student, the conversation was never “oh, that won’t work,” but instead “let’s try and make that work for you.”

I had the chance to travel to Peru for research, thanks to support from a United Government of Graduate Students travel grant. Environmental and architectural context were critical to my work—my thesis wouldn’t have been the same without that opportunity to travel.

I also often reflect back on the experience I had as a teaching assistant. While I was excited and honored to receive the opportunity to teach initially, I had no idea when I started the program that teaching would have such a massive impact on my life. Working in a university now, I can’t overstate how formative an undergraduate college experience can be. I feel so grateful when I think back to the conversations about art that I got to have with students each week, where we could ask difficult questions and learn together.

I’m currently serving as the Director of Communications at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. The museum focuses on the art of our time—in dialogue with the historical—and encourages engagement with timely issues of local relevance and global significance, such as restorative, environmental, and racial justice. I’m fortunate enough to work in one of the few Zaha Hadid-designed buildings in the United States as well. It’s a pretty big perk! We also have a second space across the street—the MSU Broad Art Lab—that houses community-driven programming and exhibitions that focus on experimentation and collaboration in art-making.

I think quite a bit about how everything I experienced in graduate school led me to this position. While I had years of professional communications experience, my leadership style is deeply rooted in the classroom—as bot

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