Meet the Artists of Studio Allston

Kathleen Gerdon Archer, originally from Morristown, NJ and currently resides in Beverly, MA, tells photographic stories using water. Driving rain, dense fog and melting ice have been prevalent themes in her work for over a decade. Each sculpture contains frozen layers of personal writing, jewelry, memorabilia, snapshots, rocks and plants. As the ice melts, each layer slowly reveals itself and showcases Archer’s art. Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

As an artist and photographer, Ryan Arthurs work focuses on themes related to masculine identity, and the physical, mental, and bodily spaces where men go to assert their strength and prove their masculinity. Previous photographic series have focused on military men, outdoorsmen, white water kayaking and other adventure sports. Traversing harsh environments, his subjects, test the limits of their courage, flirt with danger, experience adrenaline, and rely on the bonds of friendship for survival. Ryan Arthurs was born in Niagara Falls, NY and currently resides in Buffalo, NY.

Guests can experience his work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Originally from Quincy, David Buckley Borden is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based interdisciplinary artist and designer. Using an accessible combination of art and design, Buckley promotes a shared environmental awareness and heightened cultural value of ecology. David's place-based projects highlight both pressing environmental issues and everyday phenomena. Informed by research and community outreach, David's work manifests in a variety of forms, ranging from site-specific landscape installations in the woods to data-driven cartography in the gallery. David was a 2016/2017 Charles Bullard Fellow in Forest Research at Harvard University and studied landscape architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

Guests can explore his work in the Naturalism Suite.

Urban and fine art painter, Thomas Buildmore takes iconic paintings from art history and reinterprets them by using spray paint to provide an excitingly modernized take on classic art. Buildmore was born in Brockport, NY and currently resides in Philadelphia.

Guests can experience his work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Born and raised in Queens, NY, Cyrille Conan is a first generation American, identifying both as French and American. In his artwork, Conan uses grit and text heavy visual language to his childhood in NYC in the 1980s. He pairs this with art representative of his love of the natural world from his time spent in Brittany to produce an aesthetic that has been described as a bridge between graffiti and fine art. Each layer informs and dictates the final composition until he finds a visual balance of form, color and repetition. Cyrille currently resides in Roxbury, MA. Guests can experience his work in the Reel Countdown Suite and in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Furniture, garment making, murals and installation are all part of Jim Drain’s cross-disciplinary approach to his art. With these hybrid spaces, Drain brings bright colors and haptic experiences that often explore ideas of utopia. Jim Drain received his BFA in Sculpture in 1998 from the Rhode Island School of Design. Drain has had solo exhibitions at the University of Florida; Locust Projects, Miami; and the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin. His work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of Art; Peres Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemportary Art, Los Angeles, The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway; Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Guests can experience his work in the Drink in the Cosmos Suite.

Morgan Dyer grew up in New Hampshire and moved to Beverly, MA once she graduated with her BFA in painting and Art History at Montserrat College of Art. Her background of travel and moving encourages her to discover and reconnect with her surroundings which has become the main focus of her artwork. She works primarily with acrylic paint and known for her large dream-like abstract landscapes which are built by layers of color.

Guests can experiences her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Maya Erdelyi is a Boston and LA-based award-winning animator and director. She creates intricate and colorful hand-made animations and collages inspired by imaginary worlds, memories and the unconscious. Her animations utilize a hybrid approach to cut-paper stop-motion, puppetry, hand-drawn, digital animation and installation.

Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.</p?

Sophie Greenspan’s work includes digital design, paper cut-outs, hand-lettering and large-scale murals. The limitations of using only cut paper have led her to simplify and refine her style. Much of her work is a love letter to the architecture, food, and flora of her chosen home, which provides a never-ending stream of inspiration. Greenspan also recently completed a series of 100 paper cut-outs depicting life in Mexico City. Greenspan was born in Boston, MA, and currently resides in Mexico City.

Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Boston-based Jay LaCouture is a self-taught, multimedia artist focused on drawing and print-making. LaCouture is constantly inspired by his environment­—his work is a reflection of the people, places and objects he interacts with on a daily basis. In 2004, LcCouture started AntiDesigns, a modest screen printing operation.

Guests can experience his work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Mary Lewey is a self-taught artist who works mainly in collage. She repurposes nostalgic or perhaps forgotten imagery into contemporary artwork that amuses by creating playful hand-cut paper collages from vintage books and magazines. Her process involves constant exploration through her collection of found objects—she selects forms and figures with the potential to hold their own outside of their original context. With each find , she meticulously cuts from the page and applies it to a collage only after careful consideration. Mary Lewey was born in Alton, IL and currently resides in Cambridge, MA.

Guests can experience his work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Samuel Marcus Kontny’s works gives the digital screen its proper credit. He combines the art of the deep past with the daily existence of an omnipresent social media. In doing so he compresses the sphere of high and low culture in a way that reveals the creative gambit of human history as a mesh of technology, aspiration, introspection, public appeals, and egos. Kontny earned his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art & Design in 2015, where he received the Robert Billings award in 2012. He has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions in the Boston area, notably at CLEAR Design Lab in Boston's South End in 2015 and at the Barry's Shop group pop art show in 2016 commissioned by Isenberg Projects.

Guests can experience his work in the lobby of Studio Allston.

From fiber to found-object sculpture, puppetry to public works, movement to publication, Maria Molteni employs the tactile and tactical to encourage participation over spectatorship. Inspired by her matriarchal ancestors, a rural schoolhouse teacher, dedicated quilter, beekeeper, and strawberry farmer, her work addresses resourceful approaches to art, craft, and pedagogy. Molteni received her BFA in 2006 from Boston University in printmaking, painting and art education. She was born in Nashville, TN, and currently resides in Boston, MA.

Guests can experience her work in the Unplug & Play Suite.

Kenji Nakayama, a mechanical engineer by education, made a significant life change in 2005 with a moving from his home country of Japan to Boston to study traditional sign painting and to dedicate his time and energy to art-making. Nakayama’s diverse practices range from careful pin striping and gilded lettering to hand-cut, multi-layered stencil paintings.

Guests can experience his work on building’s elevator panels.

Realism is riddled with anxiety-induced pressure. Molly Scannell prefers collage. With over 20 years of experience in visual design, user experience strategy, and managing creative concepts across the entertainment, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare industries, Scannell uses her art to expand stories and create digital and physical pieces. Molly Scannell was born in Beverly, MA and currently resides in Arlington, MA.

Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Allison Tanenhaus is a digital glitch artist who specializes in abstract geometrics, vibrant color fields, and unexpected dimensional qualities. Tanenhaus’ source of materials consists of observational photographs and personal images from her daily life—discarded electrical wires, hand-painted signs, her own street art, and previous glitch works—that she digitally alters via smartphone apps and design software. Allison Tanenhaus was born in New York, NY, and currently resides in Somerville, MA.

Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

An artist of indefatigable energy, David Teng Olsen merges the worlds of mural painting, printmaking, animation, interactive digital media and performance. His project Chasing Infinity extends his previous work with a five-channel projection surrounding the viewer with an animation in progress. He has created site-specific installations across the country and has collaborated on numerous animation projects.   

Guests can experience his work on the van in the parking lot of Studio Allston.

Channeling subjects such as dream imagery, imagined landscapes, geodes, outer space and The Big Bang, Liz Tran explores the shapes of nature with the infusions of pulsing synthetic hues. The use of color in Tran’s work is an unapologetic form of escapism from the long stretches of grey weather that continually blankets her Pacific Northwest home of Seattle, WA. Pulsing fluorescent paints massage the naked eye with ultraviolet light, creating an energized glow impervious to dull environments. Liz Tran was born in Eugene, OR and currently resides in Seattle, WA.

Guests can experience her work in various guest rooms throughout the property.

Jason Woodside is a prolific artist whose refreshing paintings and murals can be found throughout New York City, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Paris. His work is based on bold geometric shapes, vibrant and hypnotizing patterns as well as striking color combinations. Woodside is also known as one of the key personalities belonging to the post-graffiti movement.

Guests can experience his work in the lobby of Studio Allston.