Glen Kessler
Glen Kessler is an internationally collected and awarded artist based in Kensington, MD. He is the founder of The Compass Atelier in Rockville, MD, Compass Art Center in Kensington, MD, and the inventor of The Painters Compass Color Wheel. Kessler received a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA from New York Academy of Art. He has taught at Maryland Institute College of Art, George Washington University, and George Mason University. He is a 2-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for Outstanding Figurative Art, a Prince of Wales Fellow, and a Maryland State Arts Council Grant awardee.
Mary Proenza
Mary Proenza is an Associate Professor of Art and Cody Gallery Director at Marymount University, Arlington, VA. She completed an MFA in painting at New York Studio School, an MFA in creative writing at The New School, and a BA in literature at the College of Creative Studies, UCSB. Recent exhibitions include Bowery Gallery and the Painting Center in New York City, a printmaking and book art exhibition at William Paterson University, and the 2024 Bethesda Painting Awards, where she was a prize winner. For an NEA Arts Project Grant, she presented a solo show and created relief prints for the collaborative book Truth Comes Slowly, printed at Kalamazoo Book Arts Center. Proenza’s artwork has been published as book, magazine, and CD covers. As a writer, her exhibition reviews have been published in Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail. Her residency fellowship awards include the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Jentel Artist Residency Program, the Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony.
Elaine Qiu
Elaine Qiu is a multidisciplinary artist works in painting, drawing, printmaking, installation and video. She values the ancient power of storytelling and is fascinated by how memories and experiences are constructed and stored. Her work explores the liminal spaces between reality and fiction, physical and psychological, and tells stories about change. In her work, Qiu offers a meditation between life’s seen and unseen, draws attention to the tension and flow between the personal and the public. Qiu holds an MFA from University of Maryland, and a BFA from George Mason University.
