Department of Art

Nicki Green is a transdisciplinary artist working primarily in clay. Her sculptures, ritual objects and various flat works explore topics of history preservation, conceptual ornamentation and aesthetics of otherness. Often constructing heavily ornamented painted glaze surfaces and experimental, organic building techniques, Green explores material and object integrity by utilizing transness as a lens with which to look at the world.

Green’s work is in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, CA; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) in Berkeley CA; and Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, France, among others.

Green has exhibited her work internationally, contributed texts to numerous publications, and received several prestigious awards and grants.

Originally from New England, she completed her BFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2009 and her MFA in art practice from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018. Green is an Assistant Professor of Ceramic Art at Alfred University. 

Learn more about Green at her website and Instagram page.

Aki Goto is a Japan-born, New York–based artist whose work fluidly moves between video, installation, sound, drawing and more. Starting from raw, intimate videos of everyday life, her practice has since expanded into immersive, room-scale installations that combine humor, emotion, and psychological intensity.

Her work, known for its strong emotional pull and distinctive visual rhythm, has been exhibited in many galleries and museums including EUROPA gallery, Nonaka-Hill Gallery, CLEARING, and The Dorsky Museum, in addition to curated screenings by Daniel Merritt.

Learn more about Goto on the EUROPA website and on her Instagram page.

Lola Brooks is an artist, metalsmith, jeweler, educator, clotheshorse, and sometimes writer, living and working in Georgia. She received her BFA in metalsmithing in 1997 from SUNY New Paltz. Since graduating, she has taught at numerous universities and schools of craft and participated in many solo and group exhibitions both in the United States and abroad. Her work can be found in many private and museum collections including the RISD Museum, The Renwick Gallery, the Dallas Museum of Art,  the Museum of Art and Design, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Learn more about Brooks on the Meeka Fine Jewelry website and on her Instagram page.

Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Kathleen Caraccio is a master printer, collage artist, and founder of the K. Caraccio Printmaking Studio and Gallery. A vital figure in New York’s printmaking scene for over 50 years, she has amassed a collection of more than more than 7,000 fine art prints and handmade books. For Caraccio, the act of collecting has served as much as a form of memory making and storytelling as it has a teaching and research tool.

Caraccio trained with Arun Bose at Lehman College and began her career at Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop, where she embraced a philosophy of accessibility and creative exchange. Known as an “everyman’s printer,” she has editioned for hundreds of artists including Romare Bearden, Louise Nevelson, Emma Amos, Mel Bochner, Sean Scully, and Sol LeWitt.

Innovative in both technique and teaching, Caraccio has championed viscosity printing, silk aquatint, and green printmaking practices inspired by her studies with Sensei Toshi Yoshida in Japan. As a dedicated mentor and educator, she has guided over 250 interns and has taught at NYU, Columbia, Parsons, Pratt, and the New York School of the Arts.

Her work is held in major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Achenbach Foundation, and the Library of Congress.

Learn more about Caraccio on her website and Instagram page.

Oscar yi Hou is an artist and poet from Liverpool, UK who lives and works in New York City. His work explores themes of identity, diaspora, and cultural hybridity in his evocative paintings and installations.

Hou has held notable solo exhibitions, including “Crane Seeking Comforts” at T293 in Rome (2021), “A sky-licker relation” at James Fuentes Gallery in New York (2021), “East of sun, west of moon” at the Brooklyn Museum (2022–2023), and “The beat of life” at James Fuentes Gallery (2024). A graduate of Columbia University, Hou won the annual UOVO Prize and was named an Artsy Vanguard in 2022. Earlier in 2024, he received the Philip Pearlstein Painter Distinction at Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program.

Learn more about Hou on his website and Instagram page.