Painting
The painting program offers graduate and undergraduate studio courses in contemporary painting. Our courses include beginning, intermediate and advanced acrylic and oil painting, watercolor and Summer Sessions outdoor landscape painting. These outdoor courses have taken place throughout Alaska in various historic and scenic areas such as the Brooks Range, Denali National Park, Valdez, Cordova, and McCarthy.
Faculty
Michael Nakoneczny
Associate Professor, MFA
Currently on sabbatical - 2006-2007
"Narrative, when you find it in the visual arts, is usually thick with
mystery. In paint and photography, you don't have the luxury of text
to tell your story. So unless you're working in comic art or video,
the stories you tell will always be indirect and imperfect, leaving
the viewer to fill in the gaps. Painter Michael Nakoneczny, who lives
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Chicago, clearly has stories to tell. His
scrappy mixed-media paintings on Masonite are populated with
characters, and there's a child-like directness to his work—a kind of
unschooled emotionality that's very appealing. But the little scenes,
which call to mind the cartoons of Lynda Barry, raise more questions
than they answer. Who's the man with his wingtip shoes off, and why
is Frankenstein lurking behind him? Who are those people in the
little Asian-style houses—and is that guy vomiting blood? Who's that
woman in Shadow by Munch? A prostitute? A girl anxiously awaiting
the results of a medical exam? You look for clues in the portraits of
dictators and birds on the wall behind her, but this only increases
the ambiguity. The fragments of text sprinkled throughout are equally
unhelpful: "Hai. You would be very nice and warm. $12.50" in the
painting River House is probably the beginning of a great travel tale
filled with bedbugs and sleepless nights—but who knows? Nakoneczny's
visual stories lead in circles and its fun to go round and round."
- Andrew Engelson
Michael Nakoneczny lived in Chicago for over twenty years. He is currently teaching painting at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Alaska. Michael has received numerous awards including a Rasmuson Foundation Grant, Illinois Art Council Fellowship and an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Fellowship. He received a BFA from Cleveland State University and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati. Michael Nakoneczny is represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Inc., Chicago, IL. and Grover Thurston Gallery in Seattle, WA.
Jessie Hedden
Adjunct Lecturer
Kesler Woodward
Professor Emeritus, MFA
Born in Aiken, South Carolina in 1951, Kesler Woodward has been an Alaska resident since 1977. He served as Curator of Visual Arts at the Alaska State Museum and as Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Center of Alaska before moving to Fairbanks in 1981. He is currently Professor of Art, Emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he taught for two decades, serving as Chair of the Art Department and as Chair of the Division of Arts and Communications. He retired from teaching to paint full time in the spring of 2000.
Woodward's paintings are included in all major public art collections in Alaska, and in museum, corporate and private collections on both coasts of the United States. Solo exhibits to his credit include the Morris Museum of Art, University of Alaska Museum, Alaska State Museum, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, and public and commercial galleries throughout the U.S. Juried and invitational exhibitions including his work have ranged from Alaska to Brazil and Russia.
