MICA Painting Department

Check out our line-up of student thesis performances taking place over the ArtWalk weekend! Hunter Moore - Fox 220 Friday, May 15, 6:15-7pm Saturday, May 16, 2-2:45m Performance is 30-45 minutes Content warning: Performance will include partial nudity Hunter Stearns - Fox 220 Friday, May 15, 7:15-7:30pm Sunday, May 17, 3-3:15pm Each performance approximately 15 minutes Ace Minina - Fox 210 Friday May 15, 6-6:10pm, 7-7:10pm, 8-8:10pm 3 distinct performances, around 10 min each Content warning: sexual/mature/violation content

PAINTING SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: ROWAN BLANKEMEYER Through graduation in May, we are highlighting the incredible work of our senior Painting majors in our series of Senior Spotlights. Today we are featuring the work of Rowan Blankemeyer @rowanelizabethart 🌟🌟🌟 My name is Rowan Elizabeth Blankemeyer (she/her), originally from forested Pennsylvania, and I am a Senior Painting major, with a minor in Drawing, as well as a Masters of Arts in Teaching graduate student. Through personal encounters with native species, I examine the possibilities of ecosystems and the possibilities of womanhood within the ever-present threatened public lands of the Northeastern United States. These two subjects grieve, bask, and cultivate, and rather investigate and preserve one another through various forms of interaction. My current painting practice is deeply tied to my title as a forest naturalist/park ranger, a public official within the Baltimore County Government sector, in which I lead programs synthesizing artistic and natural interests to patrons of all ages, while also stewarding the 500 acre land and its many inhabitants. @marylandinstitutecollegeofart @micapaints @mica.drawing @mica.generalfinearts

Students of Raoul “That 70’s Show” is now on exhibit at the Raoul Middleman Studio Museum though July 19th. This is a great show of MICA alumni painters influenced by an incredible painter and educator. The museum is open on Saturdays from 1-4 or by appointment. While there be sure to visit Raoul’s legendary studio! @raoulmiddleman @marylandinstitutecollegeofart @ink_spot_press @elcranko @samrobinsonfineart

PAINTING SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: SOFIA MCDANIELS Through graduation in May, we are highlighting the incredible work of our senior Painting majors in our series of Senior Spotlights. Today we are featuring the work of @sofiamcdanielss 🌟🌟🌟 My name is Sofia McDaniels (she/her) from Atlanta, Georgia! I’m a senior painting major :) In my work I seek to express concern about the legacy of white supremacy in the American South, wondering what it takes to be feminine, and who is allowed to be [feminine]. I assume the position of the white feminine (Southern Belle), aiming to articulate the essential role of white womanhood in the Ku Klux Klan, the incitement of spectacle lynchings, and a generational legacy of violent anti-blackness, while simultaneously exploring internalized and externalized acts of violence resulting from this assimilation. The white feminine exists in direct opposition to Blackness, and in challenging the understanding of white American femininity as perpetual victimhood, purity, and a thing in need of protection, I aim to recognize the threat that it has historically posed to the Black body. I’ve enjoyed dipping my toes into the sculpture and fibers department at MICA, the way that these departments discuss artwork and craftsmanship has not only shifted the surfaces I paint on and how I display my work, but how I think about composition and implication overall. For my thesis I’ve been focusing on the dramatic and theatrical and will be presenting a number of cut out and layered paintings for ArtWalk. @marylandinstitutecollegeofart @micapaints @mica.drawing @mica.generalfinearts

PAINTING SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: MEGAN HILLAKER Through graduation in May, we are highlighting the incredible work of our senior Painting majors in our series of Senior Spotlights. Today we are featuring the work of Megan Hillaker @megan.hillaker 🌟🌟🌟 My name is Megan Hillaker (they/them) from Boston, MA. I am a Senior Painting major with a minor in Humanistic Studies. My work discusses my personal engagement with purity culture rhetoric and my experiences growing up as a queer, femme-presenting individual in fundamentalist Christian spaces of America. By posing religious relics and kitsch objects with elements of decay, my art explores this movement’s perpetuation of gendered harm and the adherence to artificial identity; simultaneously critiquing the long-lasting repercussions of its rhetoric, increasingly felt in our contemporary society. @marylandinstitutecollegeofart @micapaints @mica.drawing @mica.generalfinearts

PAINTING SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: WILLIAM STALLINGS Through graduation in May, we are highlighting the incredible work of our senior Painting majors in our series of Senior Spotlights. Today we are featuring the work of William Stallings @williamstallingsart 🌟🌟🌟 My paintings communicate through visual and textual elements. I depict scenes of queer intimacy in relation to personal and appropriated found texts. Asking the viewer to both see and read, my paintings synthesize new dialogues out of the two experiences.

I intend to stay in Baltimore and develop my practice further in this city’s art community. @marylandinstitutecollegeofart @micapaints @mica.drawing @mica.generalfinearts

Painting and illustration Offered fall 2026 with Professor Lolo Gem Painting and Illustration  Designed for students in fine arts who wish to challenge the traditional distinctions between fine art and commercial aesthetics.This course blurs boundaries between painting and illustration, positioning painting as a vehicle for narrative storytelling and illustration as an extension of painting practice within a professional context. Students will explore a range of image-making strategies that utilize a variety of mediums, and draw from references such as popular culture, illustration, and art history. Through lectures, demonstrations, and prompt-based projects, students will develop a personal voice alongside an understanding of professional practice, including working with clients, adapting work to specific contexts, and building a portfolio suitable for professional use.

The spring 2026 Intro to GFA and Personal Directions classes present their end of semester exhibition: "Odds & Ends" Thursday May 7th, 12-1pm Main Building, Floor 3 All are invited!

Join us on Monday, May 4th, 12-1:30pm for "Untethered", the spring semester GFA & Painting Junior Independent exhibition in the Lazarus 3rd floor studios!

Spring 2026 looking back 🥲

End of the semester 🥲 looking back 🥰