Past SCAD Alumni Atelier associates
Fall 2022
Julien Bouil
M.A., accessory design, 2015
Cameroon-born designer Julien Bouil is the founder of Le Shoechainz Customs, a brand specializing in sneaker customization, deconstruction, and reconstruction for celebrity clients including professional athletes, actors, and influencers. More recently, Bouil founded the luxury footwear brand Fl’eau Ink for his original designs inspired by historic civilizations and global cultures. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Bouil is initiating production of a new collection of sneakers and accessories, bringing a fresh aesthetic to market. Follow @le_shoechainz.
Kazimir Skye
B.F.A., advertising, 2022
Kazimir Skye is a trans masc fashion and beauty photographer and art director whose foundational experience with 35 mm film influences his approach to digital media. Embracing the beauty and diversity in the LGBTQIA+ community, his work has been published extensively including several cover features. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, the artist is expanding his photographic series We Don’t Talk, highlighting the diversity of Savannah’s queer community through the introduction of new processes including cyanotype prints, as well as initiating a series of self-portraits that celebrate vulnerability and acceptance. Follow @skyeb.photo.
Chiarra Joseph
M.F.A., fashion, 2012
Chiarra Joseph founded her brand Urban Dashiki in 2016. As head designer and product developer, she promotes body positivity, self-love, and self-awareness through fashion. Joseph’s designs have been featured in R&B artist Ray J’s music videos and VH1’s Love & Hip Hop Hollywood. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Joseph is producing a new spring collection for New York Fashion Week featuring detailed draping and applique techniques and intricate beadwork in an embrace of modern romanticism with a touch of the avant-garde. Follow @chiarracjoseph.
Makumbi Muleba
M.F.A., advertising, 2022; B.F.A., branded entertainment, 2019
Makumbi Muleba is an artist, musician, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is also the founder of Cyber Graffiti, a platform that cultivates and amplifies the latent creative and innovation industries in his native Zambia. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Muleba is collaborating with SCAD student Terius Youngdell Nash (B.F.A. fashion), aka The-Dream, an award-winning musician and producer, on a recording project to support Muleba’s philanthropic efforts in Zambia. Follow @makumbimuleba.
Sadhvi Konchada
M.A., graphic design, 2016
In both her work and her process, India-born designer and illustrator Sadhvi Konchada explores themes of adventure, freedom, and womanhood. Eternally optimistic, bright, and free spirited, her work is typified by a lush palette of deep green, mustard yellow, terracotta orange, and dusty peach. In 2022, Konchada launched her brand Drawocado featuring original illustrations and prints. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Konchada is developing a new collection of digital works that embodies the softness of nature, the power of femininity, and wanderlust for new landscapes. Follow @drawocado.
Summer 2022
Stephanie Forbes
B.F.A., painting, 2019
A native of Augusta, Ga., Stephanie Forbes is a fine artist and founder of RO3 Gallery in downtown Savannah, where she hosts bi-monthly exhibitions featuring local artists and creatives. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Forbes is developing a new large-scale, immersive installation using more than 3,000 oyster shells. Follow @sforbes.art.
Michelle Citrin
B.F.A., photography, 2008
Michelle Citrin is a photographer and founder of Michelle Citrin Studios. Through her studio — based in Miami Beach, Fla., and Asheville, N.C. — Citrin creates high fashion photoshoots to uplift and empower the modern career woman. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, she is expanding her brand across the southeast U.S. to elevate the confidence and self-esteem of mothers through mother and child portraits. Follow @michellecitrin_studios.
Megan Welch
M.F.A., painting, 2019
Based in Florida, multi-disciplinary artist Megan Welch has had her work featured in various exhibitions, including the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art’s FIFTY: An Alumni Exhibition and in St. Augustine Art Association’s Figures and Faces. For SCAD Alumni Atelier, Welch is exploring her large-scale cut-paper works in ways that evoke meaning for students in the SCAD painting program and that invite collaboration with the department’s faculty. Follow @meganwelchartworks.
Makumbi Muleba
M.F.A. advertising, 2022; B.F.A., branded entertainment, 2019
Makumbi Muleba is an artist, musician, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is also the founder of Cyber Graffiti, a platform that cultivates and amplifies the latent creative and innovation industries in his native Zambia. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Muleba is collaborating with SCAD student Terius Youngdell Nash (B.F.A. fashion), aka The-Dream, an award-winning musician and producer, on a recording project to support Muleba’s philanthropic efforts in Zambia. Follow @makumbimuleba.
Gonzalo Hernandez
M.F.A., fibers, 2019; M.A., painting, 2018
Splitting his time between Miami, Fla. and Lima, Peru, multi-disciplinary artist Gonzalo Hernandez has exhibited his work nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including Almost There at Laundromat Art Space in Miami; A Paris a Lima at Alianza Francesca de Lima in Lima, Peru; and Celebrating Georgia Artists of Hispanic/Latinx Origin at Atlanta’s Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. For SCAD Alumni Atelier, Hernandez expounds on his work in Almost There, a manifestation of the push and pull of an artist’s process. Follow @hernandezgonzalo.
Spring 2022
Stephanie Forbes
B.F.A., painting, 2019
A native of Augusta, Ga., Stephanie Forbes is a fine artist and founder of RO3 Gallery in downtown Savannah, where she hosts bi-monthly exhibitions featuring local artists and creatives. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Forbes is developing a new large-scale, immersive installation using more than 3,000 oyster shells. Follow @sforbes.art.
Taylor Katsanis
B.F.A., film and television, 2015
For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Taylor Katsanis is leading a production team of fellow SCAD alumni on a new horror-comedy about a group of film students who stumble upon a strange, wooded village during a college documentary project — and slowly discover that they’re the ones being watched. Follow @taylorkatsanis.
Makumbi Muleba
M.F.A. advertising. 2022; B.F.A., branded entertainment, 2019
Makumbi Muleba is a multi-hyphenate artist, musician, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is also the founder of Cyber Graffiti, a platform that cultivates and amplifies the latent creative and innovation industries in his native Zambia. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Muleba is collaborating with SCAD student Terius Youngdell Nash (B.F.A. fashion), aka The-Dream, an award-winning musician and producer, on a recording project to support Muleba’s philanthropic efforts in Zambia. Follow @makumbimuleba.
Fall 2021
Raquel Benjamin
B.F.A., fashion marketing and management, 2019
A visual artist, activist, and entrepreneur, Raquel Benjamin is the founder of MYSILENTPROTEST™, an online platform for visual art and apparel that raises awareness of social issues and starts conversations that are unlikely to happen organically. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Benjamin is creating a new apparel project, “Great for Who?,” that engages notions of American cultural values and history to challenge perceptions, inspire self-reflection, and encourage honest discussions that can lead to new perspectives and understanding. Follow @mysilentprotest.
Robin Elise Maaya
B.F.A., photography, 2021
Savannah-based photographer Robin Elise Maaya focuses on the documentation of childhood, integrating stories of her own juvenescence and individual experiences of humanhood. Maaya predominantly engages historical photographic and printmaking processes to fully capture the raw and tangible reality that others often overlook as mundane. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Maaya is creating a new photographic series that encourages viewers to connect with their inner child and find comfort in the traumas we often think we must carry alone. Follow @robinbirdy.
Brandon Sadler
B.F.A., illustration, 2009
Renowned for his public murals, Brandon Sadler is a prolific multidisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work is held by the High Museum of Art and numerous private collections, and he has also collaborated with major brands, bringing his unique vision into the commercial space. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Sadler is producing a new body of work across painting, illustration, sculpture, and installation that conceptually centers systems of perception, communication, transformation, and cultural connection. Follow @risingredlotus.
Summer 2021
Melinda Borysevicz
B.F.A., painting, 2011
Melinda Borysevicz’s narrative paintings reflect a universal sense of searching and longing. Her work has been exhibited at venues including Manifest Gallery’s International Painting Annual, Figurativas 19 at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, the Museo Pablo Serrano in Zaragoza, Spain, and the RJD Gallery in New York. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Borysevicz is beginning a new series of works, taking inspiration from her en plein air studies of the landscape around Lacoste. Follow @melinbz.
Masako Maupu Masukawa
M.F.A., illustration, 1995; B.F.A., illustration, 1992
Based near Paris, Masako Maupu Masukawa has been a practicing artist for more than 20 years. Inspired by her mother’s sumi-e paintings, a traditional Japanese watercolor technique, Masukawa’s works are poetic, filled with fantasy yet at the same time tangibly nostalgic. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, she engages modes of visual storytelling, creating new watercolor works that invite viewers to free their imagination and experience joy. Follow @masako_masukawa.
Liz Robb
M.F.A., fibers, 2014
In her artistic practice, Liz Robb focuses on soft sculpture. Based in Los Angeles, she creates textured surfaces and forms with natural materials such as wool, cotton, jute, and indigo. Robb has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, and recently completed a residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Robb is creating La Vie en Rose (et Autre Couleurs), a space devoted to small designed works — including silk scarves, tassels, and assorted home wares — complemented by large-scale weavings created on-site. The objects are naturally dyed using traditional techniques like shibori. Follow @liz_robb.
Serge Ruffato
B.F.A., sculpture, 2012
Serge Ruffato is a Franco-American artist born and raised in Aix en Provence. In 2020, he was selected to exhibit work in the National Salon of Beaux Arts at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris and at the Biennale of the National Union for Sculptors in Lyon. He also completed his first public art commission in Marseille. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Ruffato hones his metalworking skills, creating cast-bronze jewelry inspired by medieval French architecture and preparing a new exhibition. Follow @abeille.fonderie.
William M. Ruller
M.F.A., painting, 2013
Born in Gloversville, New York, William M. Ruller has exhibited across the U.S. and Europe. He has been featured in Whitewall and New American Paintings, and his work is held in numerous private collections. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Ruller is preparing an exhibition of recent abstract works on canvas and ceramic sculptures that connect the industrial landscapes of rural mill towns in the American Rust Belt with the Provence region of southern France renowned for silk production. Follow @williamruller.
Nicholas Sedlazek
B.F.A., graphic design, 2015
Nicholas Sedlazek has designed campaigns for Apple and user interfaces for HP and currently works with large UI systems, building digital products with a hardware component for clients such as Peloton. Sedlazek also experiments with fashion design using upcycled materials. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, he is creating a 3D archive of brand and concept design. Follow @bootlegvhstapes.
Radheya Visperas Ponce
M.F.A., fibers, 2021
Radheya Visperas Ponce is a Filipina artist and designer with a passion for sustainable garment construction and textile-making techniques. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Qatar, Singapore, and the U.S., and she has received numerous honors, including a Red Dot Design Concept Award and a Silver Award from the International Design Awards. She was also a finalist for the Dorothy Waxman International Textile Design Prize. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Visperas Ponce is presenting a new body of tactile sculptural work that engages the gravity of textile waste while inviting viewers to imagine a hopeful future that embraces creative reuse. Follow @radheyavispera.
Spring 2021
Daniel Basore
M.A., fibers, 2020; B.F.A., interior design, 2019
Originally from West Palm Beach, Fla., textile artist Daniel Basore seeks to create work that carries stories and traditions across generations. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Basore is researching architectural drawings in the Spanish Colonial Revival style popular at the turn of the 20th century and incorporating these design motifs in textile works that continue themes in his recent series, Souvenirs from Atlantis, which examines archetypal spaces and the objects that make the experiences of such spaces concrete.
Kelli Blake
M.A., creative business leadership, 2019
For the last five years, Kelli Blake has been researching and writing about creatives throughout the Caribbean. In 2019, she launched a free legal and entrepreneurship clinic supporting emerging artists living and working in Jamaica. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Blake will continue her work with the Caribbean arts community through LVTY Art, a startup and online platform that provides support and opportunities for artists to elevate their practice through education, exposure, and exchange.
Michael Raymond Bolger
M.F.A., film and television, 2020
Aya Khablawi
B.F.A., production design, 2021
Mahalia Latortue
M.F.A., film and television, 2020
Erik Francisco Medina
M.F.A., film and television, 2020
Susiann Reynolds-Akapelwa
B.F.A., performing arts, 2021
Aditi Singh
M.A., film and television, 2020
Sanchita Singh
B.F.A., graphic design, 2021
Allison Dayne Smith
M.F.A., performing arts, 2018
Logan Taaffe
B.F.A., film and television, 2020
Tegan Zoephel
B.F.A., production design, 2021
For their SCAD Alumni Atelier project, graduate collaborators are producing the feature film Madly, which follows a tortured playwright in his attempt to revolutionize the world of theater. In addition to working with faculty from various departments, the collaborative team is employing students, promoting access, equity, and opportunity in the film industry.
Monica Cioppettini
M.F.A., painting, 2020
Multidisciplinary artist Monica Cioppettini uses reclaimed jewelry from flea markets and thrift stores to create maximalist collage works. Through an intuitive process of breaking, combining, and rebuilding, she revalues objects that have been deemed worthless and unwanted, reveling in their histories and significance as sites of memory. In 2021, Cioppettini presented her first solo exhibition, ReJeweled, at the SCAD Museum of Art. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, she is making new assemblage works and hosting workshops on mold-making, resin-casting, and working with adhesives, as well as engaging with students through critiques and studio visits.
Caroline Mae Heidenreich
B.F.A., fashion, 2009
In addition to creating her own collections and exhibiting her designs in Paris, Caroline Mae Heidenreich works with Madonna as her creative assistant and costume designer. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Heidenreich is creating a capsule collection of hand-painted garments, beginning production on a ready-to-wear line, and advancing her conceptual painting practice.
Skye Lin
B.F.A., sculpture, 2016
Skye Lin is a Vietnamese-born-Chinese art director, photographer, floral designer, and entrepreneur. Lin works in a wide range of capacities both in front of and behind the camera for clients including British Vogue, InStyle, Forbes, and Elle. She has also created large-scale installations for Art Basel and various retail stores in Ho Chi Minh City. In 2020, Lin founded the design studio Pinker Times. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Lin’s Pinker Times is collaborating with SCAD student Ran Li on an editorial for Li’s collection.
Brandon Sadler
B.F.A., illustration, 2009
Multidisciplinary artist Brandon Sadler is renowned for murals that balance ancient and modern techniques, incorporating text, illustration, and painting. As the founder of the Atlanta-based studio Rising Red Lotus, his clients include Marvel Studios, Disney, Adidas, and Google. Sadler’s work has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions and is held in the collection of the High Museum, Atlanta. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Sadler is creating new experimental works and immersive environments that engage concepts of transformation, connection, and perception.
Gibron Whitney Shepperd
B.F.A., fashion, 2019
Designer Gibron Whitney Shepperd is a 2019 CFDA Future of Fashion Graduate. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, he is creating an environment in which to host a pop-up shop of his designs and as well as a reading of his memoir Sons of Abraham.
Winter 2021
Ifie Natasha Brandon
M.A., creative business leadership, 2018
Ifie Natasha Brandon is a poet, author, spoken word artist, and content strategist who believes in the power of authenticity and creative storytelling. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations build community and strengthen their impact. Brandon’s Alumni Atelier project, a memoir titled Unfulfilled, shares her personal journey of self-discovery. As part of the project, she hosts intimate monthly retreats, creating a safe space for building community and nurturing creativity on the path to finding fulfillment.
Stephanie Meghean Forbes
B.F.A., painting, 2019
In large-scale abstract works, conceptual projects, and jewelry collections, Stephanie Meghean Forbes seeks to replicate the beauty and vitality of the South, evoking the euphoria and alchemy she experiences in Savannah and the Lowcountry. Forbes’ Alumni Atelier project includes a new series of abstract works as well as advanced material studies to inform her jewelry-making practice.
Eleni Georgopoulos
B.F.A., interior design, 2019
Eleni Georgopoulos is associate designer at designbar, where she leads lighting and furniture design projects with acute attention to material, budget, and communication with clients. In her Alumni Atelier project, a vignette that focuses on the relationship between the fashion and interior design industries, Georgopoulos plays with light, movement, color, texture, and pattern. She is also developing her own small business, creating timeless works that hold deep meaning for their users.
Mahalia Latortue
M.F.A., film and television, 2020
Natasha Sequeira
M.F.A., film and television, 2020
Allison Dayne Smith
M.F.A., performing arts, 2018
Producer Mahalia Latortue is the co-founder of Anacaona Pictures, a film development company that highlights women and people of color. She has produced various films as well as the podcast The Struggle is REEL. Natasha Sequeira is a writer, director, and producer whose work includes more than 30 shorts, music videos, fashion films, and branded experiences. Her thesis project, Beyond Customs, was selected for multiple film festivals and won Best Student Film at the 2021 Austin Indie Fest. Allison Dayne Smith is a nationally recognized actor, writer, director, and entrepreneur. Her production company, Leading Ladies, provides opportunities for women’s voices to be heard on stage and in film. Dayne Smith has developed treatments for TV shows and feature films for Netflix, Hulu, Bad Robot Productions, and Ridley Scott. Latortue, Sequeira, and Dayne Smith’s Alumni Atelier project, the feature film Madly, follows a tortured playwright in his attempt to revolutionize the world of theater. In addition to working with faculty from various departments, they are employing students and alumni, promoting access, equity, and opportunity in the film industry.
Paris Mumpower
B.F.A., graphic design, 2016
Jeffrey Taylor
B.F.A., fashion, 2016
Roy Carey Ware
B.F.A., fashion, 2016
Roy Carey Ware uses the medium of fashion to help women transform into their higher self. With fellow SCAD graduate Jeffrey Taylor, Ware co-founded the luxury womenswear brand Jeofroi. Taylor won the Supima Design Competition in 2016 and was named Emerging Fashion Designer of the Year at the 2017 International Design Awards. He has shown collections at New York and Paris Fashion Weeks and been featured in WWD, Essence magazine, and Teen Vogue. Ware and Taylor’s debut collection for Jeofroi — inspired by the works of artists Lali Torma and James Nares — features dramatic silhouettes in rich jewel tones, playing with symmetry and proportion to accentuate the female form. Their Alumni Atelier project, a collaboration with Paris Mumpower, further develops the brand, capturing the collection in powerful visuals that relay a message of beauty, opulence, and inclusion. Mumpower is a director, multidisciplinary artist, and studio founder. Her clients include Estée Lauder, Gap, Wilhelmina Models, IMG, Paper Magazine, and V Magazine.
Andrew Ondrejcak
B.F.A., performing arts, 2002
Andrew Ondrejcak’s work in experimental theater led to a career in art direction and production design for the fashion industry, where he became known for bold, large-scale environmental installations. His theatrical works have been presented internationally, and he has served as creative director of special projects for Hermès, Vivienne Westwood, New York and Shanghai Fashion Weeks, Vogue Italia, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, among others. In his Alumni Atelier project, the short film The Actress, Ondrejcak explores how Hollywood has shaped ideals of beauty. A collaboration with Filipino filmmaker Isabel Sandoval, the film follows the trans actor as she shapeshifts through iconic moments in film history, reimagining cinematic archetypes for today.
Sally Mayer Seidl
M.F.A., painting, 2020
Using expressive gestural line work and distressed layering techniques to evoke dissipating memories and nonlinear time, Sally Mayer Seidl creates large-scale narrative works that explore the nature of humanity. Seidl is also the founder and executive director of Frailty 1664, a nonprofit focused on the historic preservation of 18th- and 19th-century structures and the conservation of woodlands, meadows, and watersheds. Seidl’s Alumni Atelier project further develops the nonprofit’s mission, initiatives, and programming and also includes an intensive series of work painted en plein air in Savannah’s marshland.
Winter 2021
Atlanta
Carla Contreras
M.F.A., painting, 2020
Ecuadorian interdisciplinary artist Carla Contreras is known for organic, anthropomorphic work that explores themes of urban and natural ecosystems and their inhabitants. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, she is developing a new body of work investigating ideas related to longing, transformation, resilience, balance, and human-nature coexistence. Follow @carla.contreras.art.
Jeremy Sykes
M.F.A., performing arts, 2018
Jeremy Sykes is a writer, producer, and screen actor who holds degrees in performing arts, acting for film, screenwriting, and producing for film and television. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Sykes is creating a new feature film, taking on the roles of performer, writer, and producer, to debut on the circuit of major U.S. film festivals.
Savannah
Aleckxi Dorhofer
B.F.A., fibers, 2021
Aleckxi Dorhofer is a textile artist and designer whose practice focuses on surface design, textile manipulation, and embellishment using both physical and digital methods. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Dorhofer is developing a new series of intricate surface treatments driven by the creative impulse as well as historical narratives and personal anecdotes. Follow @aleckxidorhofer.
Karolyn Fraine
M.F.A., painting, 2021
Karolyn Fraine weaves colors and textures across expansive, large-scale works that explore sublime encounters with the natural world. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, she is producing a new body of work, Serendipitous Journey, that spans mediums such as oil, acrylic, ink, and graphite and processes including etching and screen printing. Follow @kfraine_art.
Robin Elise Maaya
B.F.A., photography, 2021
Savannah-based photographer Robin Elise Maaya focuses on the documentation of childhood, integrating stories of her own juvenescence and individual experiences of humanhood. Maaya predominantly engages historical photographic and printmaking processes to fully capture the raw and tangible reality that others often overlook as mundane. For the SCAD Alumni Atelier, Maaya is creating a new photographic series that encourages viewers to connect with their inner child and find comfort in the traumas we often think we must carry alone. Follow @robinbirdy.