Art Faculty

Belle Bezdicek - Lacroute Scholar Visiting Artist

Miller Fine Arts Center 106
503-883-2232

ibezdicek@linfield.edu

Education:

BFA University College for the Creative Arts in Surrey, UK.

MA St Cloud State University, Minnesota

Belle Bezdicek was born in England and studied at University College for the Creative Arts in Surrey, UK. In 1990 she received a BFA with a First Class Honors Degree in Fine Art, Printmaking. Belle is a pioneering digital artist that combines traditional printmaking with technology for her undergraduate show. By the mid 90s she had already exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in London and received numerous commissions.

America became her home when she completed an MA at St Cloud State University, Minnesota. The digital art work expanded to incorporate multimedia setups with traditional prints. These exhibitions were installations that used interactive media, requiring the audiences’ participation. From there she moved into the graphic design industry, working in a prepress environment, then started to freelance. Realizing her skills in digital art and graphic design she pursued a career in education. From 2000 to 2018 she devoted her teaching career to the Art Institutes, in particular The Art Institute of Seattle and then Portland. She also taught at Mt Hood Community college from 2015 to 2020.

Currently, Belle is Lacroute Visiting Professor of Digital Art at Linfield University, teaching various classes and developing the curriculum for the Digital Arts program. She also continues to freelance and builds on her own work that uses typography, printmaking and mixed media.

Thea Gahr - Adjunct Professor of Art - Linfield Gallery Curator

Miller Fine Arts Center 125
503-883-2541

tgahr@linfield.edu

Thea Gahr is a bilingual artist, printmaker, educator, curator, and community culture-maker. Committed to the health and balance of the land she works to create a catalyst for positive social and environmental change. As a longtime member of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, a decentralized collective of artists in the greater America and ECPM 68 an autonomous school in Mexico City, she is dedicated to the brilliant and difficult experiment of working collectively and collaboratively. Her relief prints, paintings, and mixed media show the energy of the marks and speak to the emotional body, inviting more expansive intelligence that may inspire change for our collective well-being.

She is an Adjunct Instructor at Linfield University teaching since 2012; drawing, painting, and printmaking and is the Gallery Curator of the Linfield Gallery. Her work spans the borders of Mexico, Haiti, and the US. She grew up in a large multi-lingual farming family in the coastal foothills of Oregon, which has greatly informed her work.

Among other things she is a long-distance cyclist, aerialist, stitcher, amateur builder, gardener, traveler and is interested in land restoration.

Ron Mills-Pinyas - Adjunct Professor of Painting, Drawing, Printmaking (Chair, Fall 2019)

Miller Fine Arts Center 106
503-883-2232

rmills@linfield.edu

Education: 1976, MFA, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California 1973, BA, University of California, College of Creative Studies, Santa Barbara, California

Joe Robinson - Adjunct Professor

Miller Fine Arts Center
503-883-2232

jorobins@linfield.edu

Adrianne Santina - Adjunct Professor of Art and Visual Culture

Miller Fine Arts Center 125
503-883-2541

asantin@linfield.edu

Totem Shriver - Adjunct Professor of 3D Design, Shop Manager

Miller Fine Arts Center 125
503-883-2541

tshrive@linfield.edu

Brian Winkenweder - Professor of Art History (Chair, Spring 2021)

Miller Fine Arts Center 127
503-883-2284

bwinken@linfield.edu

Education:

Bachelor of Art with Distinction in Comparative Literature and Art History, University of Washington, 1989

Master of Art in English, University of New Mexico, 1994

Master of Art in Art History, University of New Mexico, 1997

Ph.D. in Art History and Criticism, Stony Brook University, 2004

Brian Winkenweder (Chair, Department of Art) earned his Ph.D. in art history and criticism from Stony Brook University.  Dr. Winkenweder has taught modern and contemporary art history at Linfield University for the past 15 years; previously he taught at the University of North Texas (2001-2005) and New York University (1999-2001).  In is research, Dr. Winkenweder examines the labor of artists, the metaphors critics use to describe “art work”, and the mechanics by which art becomes fetishized.  Dr. Winkenweder edited Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven (Brill/Haymarket, 2018); he co-edited Dialectical Conversions: The Art Criticism of Donald Kuspit (Liverpool University Press, 2011).  He is the author of Reading Wittgenstein: Robert Morris’s Art as Philosophy (VDM, 2008) and numerous articles and book chapters.  At present, Dr. Winkenweder is editing the Routledge Companion of Marxist Art History (Routledge, forthcoming 2023).  This anthology will include contributions from Marxian scholars from around the world.