Loyola University Maryland

Department of Visual & Performing Arts

Studio Arts Faculty

Headshot of Mary Beth Akre
Mary Beth Akre Program Coordinator, Professor

MFA, Radford University

Mary Beth Akre earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a Master of Fine Arts from Radford University. Expressive landscape is her main area of interest and art heroes include Wolf Kahn, Helen Frankenthaler, and Jim Dine. Her paintings can be found in private, corporate, and public collections throughout the United States.

Headshot of Billy Friebele
Billy Friebele Associate Professor

Billy Friebele's Personal Website
MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art

Billy Friebele is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection between digital, kinetic, and sculptural forms. Billy was a Hamiltonian Artist Fellow and one of the first makers-in-residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Central to his research and teaching are a concern for the tension between our mediated digital experience and the materiality of the environment. He has exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas, the Katzen Center for the Arts, and the Kreeger Museum among other venues nationally and internationally. Billy earned a BA in Philosophy from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Billy Friebele is an Associate Professor of Art at Loyola University Maryland.

Headshot of Professor Noelle Dichiera
Noelle Dichiera Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media

M.A., University of Baltimore

After earning an undergraduate degree in Studio Arts and Photography, Noelle Dichiera pursued her passion for art, technology, and science through the Master of Arts in Integrated Design program at the University of Baltimore. Noelle has been teaching graphic design, graphic design history, web design, and digital media classes at Loyola University for over 20 years.

Headshot of Christopher Lonegan
Christopher Lonegan Assistant Teaching Professor

Ph.D., Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts

Christopher Lonegan studied painting, philosophy and art history at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of the Arts, earning a multidisciplinary BFA. He received an MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Critical Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. His studio work involves narrative images, and he has written and presented papers on the philosophy of art, interdisciplinary curriculum design, and the philosophical history of anatomical Illustration. Professor Lonegan teaches intertextual studio classes at Loyola University.

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Nguyen Nguyen Assistant Teaching Professor of Digital Media

B.A., Bard College

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Hasani Claxton Affiliate Professor

MFA, Towson University

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Daniel Flores Estrella Affiliate Professor

M.A., Maryland Institute College of Art

Headshot of Professor Bart O'Reilly
Bart O'Reilly Affiliate Professor

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art

Bart O’Reilly is an Irish artist living in Maryland. He makes interdisciplinary work including painting, drawing, poetry, and video. He teaches at Loyola University and Harford Community College and has shown in Baltimore, New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Kentucky, as well as in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In 2000, he received his BFA from the NCAD in Dublin. He received his MFA from MICA in 2012. He has received an Individual Artists Award from The Baltimore Office of Promotions of the Arts. His work has been published in peer reviewed journals. He also received recognition of scholarly and creative work from Harford Community College and the MICA MFAST award.

Jenny Reed kneeling and working on an art piece
Jenny Reed Affiliate Professor

Jenny Reed's Personal Website
MFA, Indiana University Bloomington; BFA, Northern Kentucky University

Jenny Reed is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who specializes in ceramics. She received her BFA from Northern Kentucky University and MFA from Indiana University Bloomington. She has taught in colleges, secondary school, and community centers throughout the southern Midwest and in Baltimore, where she now resides. Jenny was awarded the Lormina Salter Fellowship at Baltimore Clayworks in 2020. She is currently creating work for an upcoming community project made possible by Maryland State Arts Council.

Headshot of Janet Maher
Janet Maher Professor Emerita

MFA, University of New Mexico

Janet Maher has been a prolific exhibiting artist for more than four decades. Her prints, drawings, artist books, collages, assemblages, digital images and works in clay are in many public and private collections. She is a member of the Artists' Cooperative Gallery of Westerly in Rhode Island, a Signature Member of the National Collage Society, and a member of the South County Art Association, Jamestown Arts Center, Warwick Center for the Arts and College Book Art Association.

Peggy Sell
Alumni

Peggy Sells

This 2007 graduate fuses her passion for art history with her desire to make art accessible at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas

Art History
A collage of drawings of the human form with various cultural modifications
Course Snapshot

Exploring Studio Arts 303: Life Drawing

Students in this visual arts class examine the structure—and intellectual context—of the human anatomy.