Inspire 2023: Caldwell University Department of Visual Art and Design Faculty Exhibition Opens in September

Kendall Baker is an artist working in site-specific installation sculpture, mixed media sculpture and photography. His site-specific work engages perceptual responses to natural environments; his hybrid sculpture/photography transposes the graphic rendering of natural subjects into the dimensionality of sculptural forms. Baker received his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art and his B.F.A. from Clark University. He spent a year in India as a Fulbright Scholar, making sculpture and studying cave temple architecture. His artwork has been shown at I-Park Sculpture Grounds, the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (WIKO), SculptureCenter (New York), the Althea Viafora Gallery (New York), the Snug Harbor Cultural Center (New York), the USIS Cultural Center (New Delhi), and MS University in Baroda, India, among other venues.

Website: www.kendallbaker.org
Email: kbaker@caldwell.edu

Suzanne Kammin Baron was born in New York and grew up in Manhattan and Toronto, Canada. She received her B.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and studied painting abroad at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland while an undergraduate and at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver at the graduate level. She is a two-time recipient of a grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.

Suzanne currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Visual Art and Design at Caldwell University. She served for seventeen years as a part-time assistant professor at Parsons School of Design. Suzanne began her teaching career as a studio instructor at the Anne Tanenbaum Gallery School of the Art Gallery of Ontario where she taught painting and drawing, worked to develop an intensive studio program for teenagers, and helped to redesign the entire curriculum for the gallery school. In addition, Suzanne taught painting at the Yard School of Art at the Montclair Art Museum and has also been a visiting artist at Pratt Institute and Roger Williams University. Suzanne has served as a guest curator at the Painting Center, where she also served for four years as a member of the gallery.

Suzanne exhibits her work internationally and has work included in private, corporate, and museum collections.

Seth Steven Bechtold (b. 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working in New Jersey. While starting his graduate studies in sculpture, his other passion of landscape photography quickly started to become entwined in his process. His first constructed landscapes came to fruition while he was working in manufacturing and started imagining a world consumed by industrial waste—resulting in the development of his series, “Wasteland”. Nearing the birth of his daughter, he sought to refocus his energies to create a world of comfort and hope. “Terra Nullius” depicts landscapes created with blankets, a space where all can find comfort. Seth lives with his wife and two children in Northern New Jersey, where he teaches photography, sculpture and digital media at Caldwell University and William Paterson University.

Martin Dull (b. 1986) is a mixed media artist and educator. He received his M.F.A. from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture and was the 2015 recipient of the Peter Rippon/Royal Academy European Travel Grant, a 2016 artist in residence at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, a 2017/18 Trestle Open Studio Resident and a 2020/21 NYSS Dumbo Sculpture Studio Resident. He has been a guest speaker and critic at several institutions, including Pratt Institute, Fordham University and Hunter College. Dull has also co-curated exhibitions throughout the New York metropolitan area and is a co-founder of the curatorial collaborative JMN Artists. Dull’s artwork has been included in both group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States, most notably John Davis Gallery, Hudson, New York and M David & Co, Brooklyn, New York. He currently teaches, adjunct, at Caldwell University.

Website: www.martindullart.com
Email: mdull@caldwell.edu

Born in Bronxville, New York, half Hong Kongese and half Italian, Jeffrey Morabito spent his early years traveling between New York and Hong Kong. He returned to Asia in 2006 to apprentice with a calligraphy master in Seoul, South Korea. This allowed Morabito’s painting to be reevaluated down to individual brush strokes. He then spent six years in Beijing, beginning with a Red Gate Gallery residency, in 2009, while teaching art at Capital Normal University. Morabito returned to New York in 2016 to pursue an M.F.A. at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, which he completed in 2016. During the 2020 lockdown, Morabito started the artist interview podcast, “I Know Strange People”, as an exploration of the unconventional in the creative process.

Morabito has exhibited in “Art Beijing”; International Art Fair and Matthius Kupper Gallery, Beijing, China; N-Space and Jay Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia; Projektraum Knut Osper, Cologne, Germany; and in Eric Firestone Loft, SFA Projects and M. David & Co., New York. In 2019, he had a retrospective of his work, entitled “Glossolalia” and curated by Karen Wilkin, at 1GAP Gallery, New York. Morabito’s work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, White Hot Magazine, Art Spiel, Youngspace, Deliciousline, and China Daily. He is a recipient of the Art Cake Studio Program, and he currently has a studio in Long Island City, Queens, New York. Morabito works as an adjunct professor at Caldwell University and the College of Mount Saint Vincent.

Heidi Sandecki is a visual artist who continues to traverse the field of graphic design, while simultaneously inhabiting the world of fine art.

Heidi’s love of botanicals began as a child while summering at her grandparent’s farm in Roxbury, New York and through the tending of a rose and vegetable garden at home. At age 11, she began taking drawing lessons with a retired local art teacher. After two years, she moved on to learn oil painting at the Ridgewood Art Institute in Ridgewood, New Jersey. There, under the tutelage of Celestine Murphy Hoffman, Heidi learned important foundational principles that she later used while attending the Maryland Institute College of Art as an illustration major.

After receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Heidi began a career in graphic design. While working during the day as an art director for JPMorgan Chase in New York, Heidi began teaching evenings at the School of Visual Arts’ Continuing Education program. Teaching proved to be extremely rewarding for her. So much so, that when her job of 15 years forced a career pivot, Heidi decided to earn her Master of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts, for the purpose of switching to a university teaching career.

One constant theme that runs throughout her fine art is her love for creating depictions of botanicals. A few years ago, Heidi began experimenting with combining the use of regular colored pencils with that of watercolor pencils and watercolor pigment. The results have given Heidi more flexibility to achieve more fine detail in her work, and the ability to also do plein air subject studies.

Heidi currently works as a part-time professor at Caldwell University, in the Department of Visual Art & Design’s graphic design program. Prior to this position, Heidi worked in the capacity as an adjunct professor for institutions such as Seton Hall University, Montclair State University and the School of Visual Arts. She also teaches botanical art workshops at the Morris Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate.

Heidi has participated in many juried art exhibitions over the years, where she has received notoriety for her work, including best in show awards.

Heidi is a member of:

• The American Institute of Graphic Arts
• The American Society of Botanical Artists
• Exhibiting member of the Essex Water Color Club

“My goal is to create a body of artwork that encourages a visceral connection with nature. And to cultivate an appreciation of how fragile our environment can be from moment to moment — inspiring preservation”.

Larry Szycher received his B.A. from New Jersey City University. He received his M.F.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Maryland. Szycher is a representational landscape painter who has been exhibiting professionally for over 40 years. Cape Cod is a favorite subject. He is a professor of fine art at Caldwell University.