Karen Atkinson: President and Founder, Coeditor of Artists*At Work
 
Karen Atkinson is a media, installation, public artist, independent curator, and collaborator. Atkinson has published and guest edited a number of publications. Exhibiting and curating internationally, Atkinson's work has been shown in South Africa, Australia, Europe, Mexico, Canada, throughout the USA, and in the Fifth Havana Biennial in Cuba.
 
In 1991, she was a co-founding director of Side Street Projects, a non-profit artist-run organization in Los Angeles, which continues to thrive now in Pasadena. Atkinson has held a faculty position at CalArts since 1988 teaching both Foundation Seminar, Context Revolt (installation, public and net art) and a Getting Your Sh*t Together class. She has been teaching workshops for over 20 years including teaching GYST workshops both regionally and nationally including for the California and Boston Lawyers for the Arts, Side Street Projects, artist run spaces and more. GYST Ink, an artist run company, was founded by Atkinson in which she created computer software for visual artists of the same title, which continues to add services for artists. Currently, Atkinson chooses to focuses on making life better for artists and less on exhibiting her own work.
 
Currently, she is the board president of NAAO: the National Association of Artists' Organizations (www.naao.net) and organized a national conference in spring 2007 titled VITAL SIGNs: creative and healthy communities. She is currently a board member for Side Street Projects. Atkinson has served on the board of directors of LACPS and Installation Gallery. In her spare time she serves on many Advisory Boards of local and national arts organizations, advises artists on their careers and tries to get into as much art trouble as possible.
 
http://www.karenatkinsonstudio.org
 
Contact Karen Atkinson >>
 

Tucker Neel: Director of Marketing/Sale/PR/Advertising/Coeditor of Artists*At Work GYST's newsletter
 
Tucker directs GYST's overall marketing, PR, sales and advertising plans. Tucker is the co-editor of Artists*At Work, GYST's e-publication. Please direct all sales, marketing, PR, and editorial inquiries to him.

Tucker Neel is an artist, freelance writer, and independent curator living and working in Los Angeles. Embracing a polymorphous practice, Neel utilizes drawing, painting, sculpture, video, installation, and online communication to create works that investigate personal, public, and political attempts to solidify memory in a material form. He holds an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design and a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Occidental College. As a curator he organized inaugural exhibitions for The Regent Galleries in downtown Los Angeles and his artist-curator project Perpsectives In the Crowd at the Bolsky Gallery at Otis College was a Critic's Pick on artforum.com. His work has also been reviewed in the L.A. City Beat newspaper and on Flavorpill.com. He writes monthly art reviews and criticism for Artillery Magazine, ISM Magazine and Fine Arts Magazine in New York. You can read his art criticism and reviews at www.tuckerneel.blogspot.com. Commissary Arts in Venice, CA provides Tucker with representation (commissaryarts.com). To view Neel's works please visit tuckerneel.com.

Contact Tucker Neel>>
 

Ashley-Martin Dunn: Office Manager

Ashley-Martin Dunn is the new office manager and, for all her modesty, is also the in-house film/video geek/pundit at GYST-INK. Look forward to video excerpts of local collaborative community ventures featuring Islands of LA, Fallen Fruit, and more.

Ashley-Martin has a few projects in the works, but it’s all rather hush hush. She’s a new CalArts grad with a BFA in Experimental Animation. Ashley-Martin believes there should be a close fit between message and medium. Other wise, she is in hot pursuit of the best pizza in Los Angeles. She is okay with jackfruit, and her favorite color is yes.

Contact Ashley-Martin>>

Ari Kletzky: Business Advisor
 
Ari Kletzky is the business advisor for GYST and has ten years of experience in business in a variety of industries. Graduating from UC Berkeley, Kletzky received dual degrees with a B.S. in Business Administration and a B.A. in Rhetoric. Upon graduating from Berkeley, Kletzky worked as a management consultant with Monitor Company, an international management-consulting firm serving Fortune 50 companies and foreign equivalents. More recently, Ari has worked in the Hispanic community for the last 4 years. He was VP at Clinica Medica General, the largest integrated healthcare delivery system serving the Hispanic Community in Los Angeles where his responsibilities ranged from planning and business development to finance and operations. Currently, he is part of the senior management team at a start-up company called Confianza, which is the first private, microfinance company focused on the United States.
 
Simultaneously, while working in the field of business for the past ten years, Kletzky has pursued an art practice working in a variety of mediums including video, photography, installation, poetry and performance.

D. Jean Hester: Internet Technology Manager
 
D. Jean Hester is an artist whose practice involves installation, drawing, video and performance by exploring communication, interaction and language. Through these mediums Hester focuses on the frailty of language and our repeated efforts to connect verbally despite its inherent failures and misinterpretation. Hester holds her MFA in Art and Integrated Media from CalArts and a BFA in Cinema from USC. Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibits, festivals, and screenings in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
 
Since 1996 she has worked as a Web Programmer and Web Designer. During the dotcom boom days Hester was a Web Consultant and Team Lead on numerous high-profile commercial web projects for clients such as Toyota and Lexus. More recently, Hester was a Web Developer and Lead on internal projects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Currently, she teaches web design and new media full-time, and is the Internet Technology Manager for GYST-Ink. Please direct all of your website questions to her.
 
http://www.divestudio.org
 
Contact D. Jean Hester >>
 

Bernard Brunon: Contributing Writer to Artists*At Work GYST's newsletter
 
Bernard Brunon, a French born and U. S. resident since 1978, is an internationally recognized artist, writer and curator. For the last 20 years, he has run the house-painting company THAT'S PAINTING Productions as a conceptual art project. THAT'S PAINTING Productions has done paintings in North America, Europe and Asia. Bernard has curated shows for museums and non-profit galleries in Europe and the U.S. He is moving to Los Angeles from Houston in September.