Meet Our Graduate Students
MFA 2025
Sarah Abdel-Jelil (she/her)
Sarah Abdel-Jelil a Mauritanian American filmmaker, dancer, and choreographer. "Inspired by my nomadic upbringing, living in eight countries in a multicultural/interfaith household, my work explores the relational aspects of home, movement, and liminal space. My creative practice centers somatic intelligence, which involves instinctually trusting one’s body in space and time, which subsequently allows me to interrogate the embodied nature of the lived experience."
Instagram: @sarahajklmnop • Website: sarahabdeljelil.com
Justin Allen (he/they)
Justin Allen is a photographer and book artist living in Maplewood, MN. "I am passionate about the medium of the artbook and I have self-published four major photobooks of my long-term projects. Recently, I started Make Do Books; taking on the role of book designer, editor, and publisher. Make Do Books was created to provide the opportunity for talented local artists to produce high quality, small editioned artbooks of their work, regardless of technical/educational background or privilege."
Instagram: @justin_d_allen • Website: justin-d-allen.com
Anna Clowser (she/her)
"I am particularly interested in systems of violence and care in the Midwest within the context of colonialism, agriculture, and their effects on land and culture. As part of my practice, I use textiles, paper, electronics, and performance as tools to create a variety of installation, print, and video work. My work is typically grounded in natural spaces in the Midwest and utilizes labor intensive processes as a way to imbue the objects I create with meaning. The techniques I employ are often skills that have been passed down to me through the women in my family. Sewing, beading, dyeing, and collecting have ancestral significance to me and connect to the history of women’s work and globalized systems of labor. During the process of creating work, I focus on my bodily actions as a method of connecting directly to the experiences and knowledge of women and laborers."
Instagram: @anna.clowser • Website: annaclowser.com
Alter Hajek (he/they/she)
Alter Hajek writes about devotion and transsexual inter-dimensional embodiment in several mediums, including sculpture, bookmaking and letterpress, analog photography, sound, illustration, and translation. He studied at Simon's Rock College and St. John's College, and received a BA in Literature from Mills College. His favorite drug is general anesthesia.
Twitter: @sin_offering • soundcloud.com/allsups
Sarah Hubner-Burns (she/her)
"I make drawings, paintings, and assemblage. My work uses collage as a foundation for creating images and forms that contain both abstraction and representation, drawing on themes related to mirroring both conceptually and through process. I use found images, personal photographs, and other ephemera in my work and I am very interested in symbolism and metaphysics. My work uses soft interventions and disruptions in recognition, alluding both to the seen and unseen in a visibly constructed and sometimes constrained sense of space."
Instagram: @burnthestudio • Website: burnthestudio.com
Roya Nazari Najafabadi (she/her)
"I want to start introducing myself with a quote from Edward Hopper: 'If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.' I was inspired by this since my artworks are empowered by my innermost emotions. Perhaps color is only one of the stuff with which I have been grown up, and recognize and define it in other artworks. I find my artwork unfinished. They are spontaneous artworks that I try to discover in my proximity and among people I see routinely. By juxtaposing colors, shapes, and things, I translate an inner emotion into an outer one. Color, volume, and emotion are the most relevant properties of my creativity."
Instagram: @royanazari1992 • Website: missroyarn.wixsite.com/portfolio
Marcus Rothering (he/him)
"I am a ceramic and fiber artist living in downtown Minneapolis with my poodle Pansy. Being black and queer is a large theme throughout my work expressing the joys and difficulties navigating these identities. My ceramic forms are inspired by the occult as well as African and Haitian folklore, and my rugs are self portraits. I received my B.A. in Studio Art and minor in Digital Media from Metropolitan State University focusing on ceramics and fiber. Hand-built techniques are incorporated with my ceramics, and I use a tufting gun to create my rugs."
Instagram: @marcusrothering • Artist interview via SooVAC: https://youtu.be/CMNOIuAaV_g
MFA 2026
Aja Bond (they/them)
"I am an interdisciplinary artist primarily working at the intersection of death/grief and compost/decomposition. I use iterative processes, ritual, feminist science, writing and social practice to explore the potential to be transformed by deepening relationships with the soil and the pervasive losses of the Anthropocene. Catharsis, reciprocity and wonder are the means by which I endeavor to resume a right-sized place in the web.
"Rich compost can bioremediate depleted and toxified land and water. Through proximity and thoughtful engagement, it can also open human senses to the possibility inherent in death. Having an ongoing somatic engagement with the decomposers opens space for reciprocal relationships with these aspects of our world relegated to the shadows. Death has a secret and it is full of wriggling life."
Website: ajabond.com • Instagram: @thriftmystic
Mikayla Ennevor (she/her/they/them)
"My work centers around the discomfort and beauty rooted in moving through trauma and grief. Clay is a wonderful medium to echo saudade (Portuguese for “a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent”) through. It is honest, malleable, and forgiving. I strive to materialize the inner to the outer, aiming not only to confront, but to offer comfort and healing.
"As of late, I have been drawn to leaving my work unfired, documenting the work wet. The ephemeral nature of unfired clay, allows me to create, and then, let go. It’s meditative to work this way. I never try to force or attempt to control, my intention is to move with the clay, respond to how it responds to me. Thus, there is never an end image of the work I have in mind rather a response to the material then and there."
Instagram: @mikayla_ennevor
Kayla J. Fryer (she/her)
"With the use of cyanotype, indigo, cotton fabric, collage, painting, film, installation, and sound I tell the personal stories of people of the Christian faith. Telling the testimonies of trials and breakthroughs of becoming as well as remaining. With my own personal struggle in my faith I realized the importance of telling these stories to not only encourage those who are Christian but also give perspective of what it looks like to live a Christian life to someone who isn't. My work is meant to be an open door inviting others to experience the intimacy of a relationship with God."
Instagram: @kaylajfryerart Website: kaylajfryer.com
Mai Tran (she/her)
"Born and raised in Vietnam, I moved to Minnesota as an international student in 2015. I hold an MA and a BFA with a concentration in Printmaking/Photography from Minnesota State University-Mankato. I am strongly interested in the connections between cultures, mythology, history, as well as human and animal interactions. Through my woodcut prints, I showcase dream-like landscapes, Vietnamese legends and customs blended with American culture to create unique visual narratives.
"Elements such as watermelon, Vietnamese café phin, traditional clothing, mythical animals, the Ly dynasty dragon and ceramics, and the Vietnamese Nom script speak to an almost forgotten culture. In contrast, the carno-lotus (cheeseburger) plant, Walleye, Bobcat, and winter scenery reference life in the Midwest. By combining elements from the two cultures, I build parallel worlds where all living things can sustain and value each other’s differences — a place without barriers of geography, race, gender, class, or species that allows us to define our own uniqueness and purpose in life.
"My woodcut prints hold true to traditional printmaking practices but deliver new narratives, linking one culture to another."
Website: maitranarts.com • Instagram: @mmai.tran
J Youngwood (they/them)
"My work investigates the inextricable link between painting and drawing, and explores my native Upper Midwestern landscape under a contemporary lens. I am influenced by humanity's short time on Earth, extreme weather, our ever-changing landscape, and solitude. The intimacy of drawing in a sketchbook is something I want to capture within my paintings, creating mystery and atmosphere by translating drawings and juxtaposing them onto larger-scale surfaces including canvas, cotton, muslin, and paper. My lifelong influences include two-dimensional sources such as animated film, comic books, and my own marker and ink drawings. I received my BFA from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee in Painting and Drawing."
Website: jyoungwood.com
MFA 2027
Anissa Cavazos (she/they)
Anissa Cavazos is an artist from the Rio Grande Valley, a culturally rich region of South Texas. Currently, she explores the interplay of family bonds amidst trauma and healing through printmaking and sculptures. She draws inspiration from her natural surroundings to capture the essence of the landscape and the flora and fauna that call it home. Occupying this scenery are beings who are symbolic representations of Mexican and Tejano culture, incorporating regional iconography, vegetation, and animals. Anissa’s artwork is marked by their attention to detail, their vivid colors, and their powerful emotional resonance.
Healing that we do not disclose but cultivate in private, manfiests as disembodied forms intertwined in the landscapes. Hidden in plain sight, the figures grow naturally within their shared environments; discovering how to coexist. Sculptures serve as a tangible embodiment of the interlaced concepts and practices inherent in frontera folklore. By drawing inspiration from the resilience and cultural narratives of Chicana artists like Carmen Lomas Garza and Gloria Anzaldúa, she seeks to contribute to a more inclusive representation of artistic voices. In doing so, her artwork becomes a vessel of the unspoken whispers of healing and cultural interconnectedness to find a voice, resonating with observers long after the figures have been unveiled.
Instagram: @anissa.cavazos
Isabela Escalona (she/her)
Isabela Escalona is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer, living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her portraiture and films blend anthropological practices with tableau—exploring a lifelong obsession with people-watching and the surreal mundanities of contemporary life. She is a part of a studio collective in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she screens films and other arts events. Along with her artistic practices, Isabela is the Senior Associate Editor of Workday Magazine, where she reports on labor struggle in the Midwest. She received her B.A. from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can often find her walking around a lake.
Website: isabela-escalona.com • Instagram: @isabela.escalona
Maeve Jackson (she/her)
Maeve Jackson is a Midwest based artist with a nomadic sensibility. As she travels, her making-space shifts based where she resides. Jackson is resistant to being limited to any single medium though she prefers working with the platforms of video, photography, and site specific installations. Jackson earned her BFA in Integrated Studio Arts with a minor in Video from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2014. Her work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions in Milwaukee, as well as Brooklyn, NY; Greensboro College, NC; Chicago, IL, Barcelona, Spain, and southern Austria. She has been featured in exhibitions at John Michael Kohler Art Center (Sheboygan, WI); and locally at (the once) Dean Jensen Gallery, VAR Gallery, and Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel; with solo exhibitions at The Alice Wilds and Lawrence University's Wriston Art Galleries. She has attended the artist-in-residence programs: Hotel Pupik (2016 & 2019), in southern Austria; Cow House Studios Open Residency Program (2019) in Wexford, Ireland; and Time and Space residency at Peninsula School of Art in Door County, WI. Her film, "the beautiful", screened across the USA after its 2017 premiere. Jackson is currently working on her next film, a non-traditional documentary about her family's farmland.
Website: www.maevejackson.com • Instagram: @_maeve_the_wave_
Maria Oostra (she/her)
I regard my painting as a register of an experienced metaphysics, a flow of wonder, curiosity, and multiplicity, expressed by colors, brushstrokes and movement within and onto canvas, a canvas that becomes a resting space for familiar forms and shapes.I place to dwell.
I am interested in discovering different ways of knowing and making, coming from a deeply connected and embodied experience. I aspire to produce work from a place of love and reconnection embracing flow, ambiguity and multiplicity found within the oscillating realities that I experience in my running.
My Dutch cultural heritage is the driving force behind my research, as it ties to a problematic colonial past (V.O.C). I wish to explore how this heritage is woven into my painting, drawings and production of textile objects. I like to question anything, and everything, especially when things are presented as objective and beyond doubt. Through my practice, as a maker and performer, I am interrogating and exploring relations to different models of truth and their systems. I am intrigued by the political and social underpinnings of canon formation and their underlying premises of a particular metaphysics.
My current practice is an in depth research into the concept of Master Painting, linking it to notions of perfection and striving for continuous progress. The concept of ‘Master’ asks for explanation and contextualization. Most recently I have been finding inspiration in the idea of performance, and wonder about how painting might be seen through a performance/performing framework- Coming from a multidisciplinary view,I find new ways of thinking and making by incorporating my athletic practice of ultrarunning into my art, the two become one scene where I am the painter-performer.My ultrarunning unfolds as painting-thinking practice.
At this stage I am interested to discover what I take back into the studio after a 38 +hours running performance through diverse landscapes. I also ask myself what I leave behind, out in the landscape, if my thoughts and footsteps can be seen as physical entities, as little creatures, productions of the mind left to dwell beyond my head and imprint alone.
nouf saleh (she/her)
My name is nouf saleh. I was born and raised on the Sanaani mountains. I am also raised by the Mostarian river, and Midwestern lakes. I am being and creating on occupied Dakota and Anishinaabe land, aka Minneapolis, MN. I am an artist, photographer, cultural worker, organizer and art administrator.
My practice is a place for me to work through familial and societal expectations that is set for me of how a black woman from Sana’a is supposed to be or dream. And also, expectations of folks on the other side of the ocean of how a black woman from a third world country is supposed to be and dream.
In my most recent works, over the last three years, I speculate and research identity, time, collective memory, grief, familial relations, secrets, and absence. My practice is an incentive for my own healing and is a grieving and composting process. My work is a site for me to release myself of the expectations and personas I took on performing. My creative process(es) is how I get to remember myself and return to my purpose continuously. As I practice this for myself, I hope to also compel folks back to themselves and into their present. And with all this, I feel a duty to document my/our present(s).
Website: noufsaleh.com • Instagram: @noufananah
Isabella Sanchez (she/her)
Isabella Sanchez is a multiracial second-generation American artist. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she earned a BFA in Visual Art with a minor in Art History from the University of Kansas in 2023. Her artistic practice combines textiles, natural dye, and various printing techniques, focusing on themes of grief, family, and race. Her work combines these elements to produce compelling yet unsettling imagery of nature and human forms. Isabella Sanchez has had work featured at the St. Louis Art Museum, the University of Kansas Memorial Union Gallery, Edgar Heap of Birds Family Gallery, and the Kansas City Artist Coalition. Currently, she is pursuing her MFA at the University of Minnesota.
Artist Statement:
One moment is all it takes to change everything. This idea is central to Isabella Sanchez's work. She focuses on themes of grief and how one moment can present itself in multitudes throughout our lives. When Isabella thinks of grief, she often associates that emotion with the worst events in her life, including the loss of her mother, the cultural loss she feels within herself, the loss of her body, or the deep losses her family has experienced across generations. Instead of turning away from these feelings, she dives deeper and explores through her work how this grief has changed her. Through prints and textiles, Isabella finds herself within the materials and understands the duality of loss. She has learned that grief is more than just pain — it is transformative and resilient. By creating beautiful yet destructive images, she hopes to capture this feeling. Isabella has learned to heal herself through creating and wants to share her transformation experience with others by building visual journeys.
Instagram: @bb.izzys