Dorian Dean (she/they) was born in Baltimore, Maryland and currently lives and works in Iowa City, Iowa. In 2022 Dean completed a MFA in Painting and Certificate of Book Arts at the University of Iowa and received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Playfulness and humor is an essential part of her practice explored through collaboration with friends and the viewers of the work. Teaching for over 15 years, Dean uses art as a tool for social change, with the belief that sharing creative experience in non-hierarchical models empowers people to get curious and question whose “rules” really serve them. As curator for the Times Club at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, curation and collaboration has become a way to put this social change into action. Dean has taught and developed curriculums at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of art and the Barnes Foundation. Among many afterschool programs and community arts organizations Dean taught as a teaching artist in the Claymobile, a mobile arts program working with incarcerated youth and inner-city schools in Philadelphia. Before attending the University of Iowa Dean spent five years as a kindergarten and first grade teacher at an independent cooperative school.
Dorian recentlyexhibited at the MdW in Chicago, and created a limited risograph edition with Stop-gap projects at Mana Contemporary. Her essay and Straightforward folder series is published in the spring 2022 Currency issue of Brink an in-print literary journaldedicated to publishing hybrid, cross-genre work. Dorian's work has been shown at Charles City Arts Center, James May Gallery, Bisignano Gallery, and has two forthcoming exhibitions at University of Central Missouri and SOIL Gallery.
Jessica Dzielinski is an artist working across painting, drawing, animation, books, sound, and film. She was raised in Phoenix, Arizona and currently resides in Iowa City, Iowa where will receive an MA and MFA in Painting & Drawing and a Certificate in Book Arts from the University of Iowa in 2023. She is the publisher of Boxed Ether, an ongoing art zine featuring personal and collaborative works.
