2023 Reviewers

Grant Adams joined NINE dot ARTS in 2011 after earning an MFA in Arts Administration from Southern Utah University and a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University.

Adams’ projects with NINE dot ARTS include several multi-family residences as well as multiple projects with healthcare clients such as Children’s Hospital Colorado. Adams’ arts administration experience includes serving as Collections Manager at Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery and Marketing and Public Relations Assistant at Utah Shakespearean Festival. Adams has sat on PlatteForum’s Artist Committee and has interned at both the Museum of Northern Arizona and Southwest Wildlife Foundation.

Donny Bajohr is the associate photo editor at Smithsonian Magazine. Bajohr has had the pleasure of collaborating with photographers on feature stories that have been recognized by American Photography, SPD, NPPA and Communication Arts.

Dariya Bryant is the Director of David B. Smith Gallery, where her key responsibilities include managing client, partner and artist relationships, exhibition curation and programming. She loves supporting and mentoring artists, empowering creative people (with a focus on immigrant women) and building a strong and welcoming art community in Colorado.

Bryant holds a Double Bachelor of Art Degree in Studio Art and Languages from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and has also studied Linguistics and Intercultural Communications at the International Slavic Institute, in Moscow, Russia. In her 10-year career in the arts, Bryant has worked with a number of art institutions locally including the Denver Art Museum, RiNo Art District, K Contemporary and Walker Fine Art; and has partnered on acquisitions and projects with major art institutions and collections nationally and internationally. She enjoys helping clients harness inspiration by incorporating art into their daily lives.

Ashlyn Davis Burns is the co-founder of Assembly, a gallery, agency, and blockchain platform based in Houston, Texas that supports an innovative roster of lens-based artists who are engaging in some of the most important social and cultural issues of our time. Assembly Curated, their integrated web3 platform, launched in 2022 to be a lighthouse in the NFT space, guiding artists, the institutions that support them, and collectors toward the most culturally-valuable work on the market, presented in curated collections that preserve the artistic process, context, and long-term value of the work on the blockchain. A brick and mortar gallery opened in the summer of 2022 with a similar focus on research-based, mid-career artists who are pushing the boundaries of lens-based media.

Prior to co-founding Assembly, Burns has worked to support lens-based artists for the past decade through curatorial, editorial, and fundraising initiatives, most recently as the Executive Director & Curator of Houston Center for Photography (2015-2020). She has written for numerous publications, consulted with artists and publishers on photo books, and curated exhibitions internationally for a variety of institutions including libraries, universities, and galleries.

*Headshot courtesy Jan Rattia

Nelson Chan was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the States and Hong Kong. Having grown up on two continents with unique cultures, this immigrant experience has influenced the majority of his work.

Chan is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he received his BFA and a graduate of the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School, where he received his MFA. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and 798 Space, Beijing, China. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of the Harry Ransom Center, The MET, The Guggenheim, The Whitney, and MoMA.

Book publishing is a primary focus of Chan’s studio practice. He is a co-founder of TIS books, and from 2016-19 he was the Production Manager of Aperture Foundation. Now based in the Bay Area, he is an Assistant Professor of Photography within the undergraduate and graduate programs at the California College of the Arts.

Brian Paul Clamp has 30 years of experience in the fine art world. In 2000, after completing a Master of Arts degree in Critical Studies in Modern Art at Columbia University, he opened CLAMP, a gallery in Chelsea, New York City specializing in modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on photography. CLAMP mounts eight to twelve exhibitions per year featuring the work of emerging and mid-career photographers.

For eight years prior to opening CLAMP, he served as the director of a gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side specializing in late 19th- and early 20th-century American art. Aside from exhibitions at his own gallery space, he has curated numerous photography shows at various venues throughout the United States, and has reviewed photographers’ portfolios at dozens of events over the past twenty years. He is the author of numerous publications on American art to date, and also occasionally contributes written work to various art periodicals.

Clamp is most interested in reviewing developed and innovative bodies of work suitable for exhibition. All types of imagery are welcome—from documentary to landscape, still life to conceptual. However, he is not interested in reviewing commercial work intended for stock or advertising.

Alyssa Ortega Coppelman is an independent photo editor and photobook consultant based in Austin, Texas. She currently holds the positions of Deputy Art Director for Harper’s Magazine; Art Researcher for the Oxford American magazine; and Archival Researcher on the Emmy-nominated, PBS NewsHour series, Brief But Spectacular.

Coppelman has been a guest lecturer for both undergraduate and graduate photography students, and enjoys teaching photo editing workshops. Working directly with photographers, she edits and sequences photobooks, zines, and portfolios, and can provide oversight on design and editorial aspects of these projects, helping artists present their strongest work in the most cohesive way.

Jennifer DeCarlo has a strong connection to the photographic field through her work and education. Established 2011 in San Diego, California and presently located on the Oregon Coast, jdc Fine Art champions content-driven contemporary artists, specializing in photography.

Prior to launching her own gallery DeCarlo worked as Writer for AIPAD, Assistant Director for Schneider Gallery, and earned her MFA from UW-Madison and BFA from Knox College. Her review style bridges fine art training and a dealer’s eye. She prefers to shape feedback in accordance with the artist’s goals and enjoys understanding the psychology driving the work. She is comfortable addressing established work, unrefined projects, sparking inspiration/breaking artist block and giving feedback on artist statements/essential documents (CV), website presence, and outreach strategies.

DeCarlo most enjoys narrative figurative work that anchors to art historical traditions or contemplates contemporary issues. She is more interested in sharing ideas and cultivating relationships than seeking new talent for flash-in the pan opportunities.

Kathy Dowell directs all curatorial affairs for Mid-America Arts Alliance, including oversight of its national touring exhibition program, ExhibitsUSA, which produces a diverse roster of projects that encompass topics in fine art, craft, folk art, photography, architecture, design, and fashion; as well as public art consulting services, curating the organization’s Culture Lab, and the development of pilot programs.

Mid-America Arts Alliance in Kansas City, Missouri is especially committed to enriching the cultural life of historically underserved communities by providing high quality, meaningful, and accessible arts and culture programs and services. She is most interested in reviewing fully-developed bodies of work suitable for thematically driven exhibitions that offer numerous opportunities for community engagement and dialogue. Her projects can include artists from anywhere in the world, and travel throughout the United States.

Andrew Fedynak of Zatara Press (Hartford Art School MFA and ICP One-Year Certificate Program) is a photobook publisher and photographer located out of Richmond, Virginia. Centered around the aesthetic view principles of Wabi Sabi and Zen, Fedynak created Zatara Press to publish uniquely designed and collaboratively crafted “Artist’s Styled Photobooks”. To ZP, photobooks are poetic art objects as well as statements or narratives.

At portfolio reviews, Fedynak is always interested in seeing clearly developed projects in the documentary and fine art genres that could lend themselves well to both short and long form creative artist’s books. Some particular themes are: photojournalism, documentary, portraiture, landscape, and conceptual. However he is interested in all forms of photography, and enjoys seeing a variety of photographic practices, both historical and modern. He can offer editorial and design advice about any project. Please familiarize yourself with ZP’s design ethos and projects before meeting.

Working as Gallery Director for the past 6 years, Libby Garon strives to connect beautiful artworks with the collectors that love them. Walker Fine Art is a 20 year old gallery showcasing original contemporary art, which features group exhibitions from a diverse roster. Each exhibition highlights artists with exceptional execution, stimulating concepts, and creative yet sophisticated approaches in a variety of mediums.

Garon began her art path studying studio art with a focus in printmaking at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and interned with print and paper studios helping to create work with Ursula Von Rydingsvard and Kara Walker. Her own background in printmaking and papermaking has drawn her to alternative photographic print processes including cyanotype, Van Dyke prints, photogravure, solar plates and mixed media.

During MOP’s portfolio reviews, Garon hopes to share the marketing and business development skill set she has gained in the arts industry.

Hamidah Glasgow has been the Executive Director and Curator at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, since 2009. She holds a master’s degree in humanities specializing in visual and gender studies and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Glasgow is a co-founder of the Strange Fire Collective, a group of interdisciplinary artists, curators, and writers focused on work that engages with current social and political forces. We seek to create a venue for work that critically questions the dominant social hierarchy and are dedicated to highlighting work made by women, people of color, and queer and trans artists. She is one of the founding board members of the Colorado Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Glasgow is interested in work that pushes the boundaries of photography, socially and environmentally relevant work, and projects that can exist outside the traditional gallery format. She is not interested in traditional nudes, traditional landscapes, and commercial work.

Deborah Hollis is a professor and Rare Book librarian leading the Instruction and Outreach Section on the Rare & Distinctive (RaD) Collections Team at CU Boulder Libraries. She and her colleagues use active learning methods that feature rare books and archival collections. She curates the David H. Tippit photo book Collection which reflects twentieth century fine art photo book history with first and limited editions across genres.

Hollis’ research and writings focus on teaching with primary sources, collection analysis, and the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic librarianship. She is a member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the Society of Photographic Education (SPE), and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). She is particularly interested in reviewing science-themed and documentary photography, and works by artists from underrepresented communities.

Frances Jakubek is an image-maker, independent curator, and advocate for artists. She is the co-founder of A Yellow Rose Project, past Director of Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City, and past Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts.

Recent curatorial appointments include: Critical Mass, Filter Photo, The Griffin Museum of Photography, British Journal of Photography, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Save Art Space and Photo District News. She has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for SPE National, and lecturer for the School of Visual Arts’ Masters of Photography i3 Lecture Series.

Jakubek is interested in viewing personal and conceptual work at any stage. She is most curious about the narrative, artist’s drive, and intention behind the photographs. With extensive experience in exhibition management, she is happy to provide insight into image sequence, print production, exhibition concept and design.

Ann M. Jastrab is the Executive Director at the Center for Photographic Art (CPA) in Carmel, California. CPA strives to advance photography through education, exhibition and publication. These regional traditions—including mastery of craft, the concept of mentorship, and dedication to the photographic arts—evolved out of CPA’s predecessor, the renowned Friends of Photography. While respecting these West Coast traditions, CPA is also at the vanguard of the future of photographic imagery.

Before coming onboard at CPA, Ann was the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco where she incorporated contemporary artists with the legends of photography. Ann also worked as the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco for 10 years until their closure in 2017.

Ann is interested in seeing all types of photography, especially documentary projects, alternative and historical process work, and traditional film based photography. She can offer exhibition opportunities as well as other support for artists.

Carol Johnson worked for 31 years in the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress before retiring to Colorado. She is currently the co-curator of  Eyes on Main Street, an annual exhibition held in Wilson, North Carolina. She also blogs about 19th century Colorado photography at www.19thcenturycoloradophotographers.com. Johnson earned a BFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art and an MLS in Library Science from the University of Maryland.

Johnson was co-author and exhibition co-curator of Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan, which was exhibited at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. She also co-curated Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment and The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photographs from the Liljenquist Family Collection at the Llibrary of Congress.

Emily Grace King is Exhibition Manager and Associate Curator at the Arvada Center, a multidisciplinary art center located in Arvada, Colorado. She manages and helps curate the Center’s three art galleries, totaling over 10,000 square feet. The Arvada Center creates all exhibitions in-house, where galleries have been free and open to the public since opening in 1974. The Arvada Center prides itself on showcasing living artists of Colorado and contemporary artists of the Western region.

King’s multidisciplinary art, curatorial and expressive practices are rooted in empathy, experimentation, and radical collaboration. Emily is most interested in seeing contemporary work rooted in storytelling, experimental processes, social justice, and/or abstraction. Less so traditional travel photography, landscape photography, or work by artists outside of the Western region.

Michael Kirchoff is a photographic artist, Editor in Chief at Analog Forever Magazine, Founding Editor at Catalyst: Interviews, and Contributing Editor at One Twelve Publishing. Based in Los Angeles, California, he conducts artist interviews, presents features, and curates fine-art photographic work from emerging and mid-career artists worldwide. He served as Editor at BLUR Magazine from 2014-2018.

Kirchoff is also an independent curator and juror for a number of organizations, and frequently reviews photographic portfolios. His consulting, training and overall support of fellow photographic artists continues with assistance in constructing one’s vision to finding exhibition and publishing opportunities. He seeks portfolios that demonstrate a cohesive and thoughtfully edited body of work, with an emphasis on the creative, either stylistically or thematically. Film-based and analog process work is of particular interest for fine art and documentary photography.

Brent Lewis is a Photo Editor based out of New York City, co-founder of Diversify Photo and originally from Chicago, the greatest city in the world, South Side to be exact. Brent is a photo editor at The New York Times working on the Home Page and breaking news desk.

Lewis was a Photo Editor at The Washington Post. Formerly, he was the Senior Photo Editor of ESPN’s The Undefeated, where he drove the visual language of the website that is based around the intersection of sports, race, and culture. Before  turning over to photo editing, he was a staff photojournalist with stints at The Denver Post, The Rockford Register Star and the Chillicothe Gazette. Through the years his photos have been used by the Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Associated Press, Forbes, and Yahoo! News.

Mike McClung has been immersed in Denver’s art scene for 20 years as an artist, a curator and a gallery owner. His gallery, Michael Warren Contemporary, has invited 125,000 guests through its doors to present works by 60 artists from across the US. His primary focus at the gallery is contemporary art with an emphasis on materials and process.

Jennifer Murray is an artist, educator, and curator based in Chicago. She is the executive director of Filter Photo, a nonprofit festival, exhibition, and educational space. Her research and professional practice spans photography-based visual, curatorial, and writing projects with recent curatorial projects at the Chicago Cultural Center and essay contributions for various artists’ publications and exhibitions.

Murray is a frequent curator, portfolio reviewer, and juror at photography events across the US. She teaches at Loyola University Chicago and is an independent artists’ consultant. She received an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. With a strong curatorial and educators background, she is most interested in viewing project-based work with a clearly identified concept. She is open to discussions about editing and sequencing, and can provide feedback for preparing projects for exhibition.

Eric Nord has spent the majority of his lifetime working within the arts, including the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theater, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sperone Westwater Gallery, and since 2014, as Executive Director of Leon Gallery in Denver, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to mentoring emerging artists across multiple disciplines. Leon aims to nurture and promote each artist, assist them in the development of their practice, and connect them with greater and more ambitious career opportunities.

Eric Paddock studied art and biology at Colorado College, then assisted photographer Frank Gohlke for three years before enrolling in the photography MFA program at Yale. After he graduated, he became the first curator of photography and film at the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado).

Paddock has been Curator of Photography at the Denver Art Museum since the DAM established its stand-alone photography department in 2008; in that capacity he has presented nearly two dozen exhibitions, ranging from focused exhibitions on the work of individual artists such as Laura Letinsky, Kenneth Josephson and Fazal Sheikh, to thematic exhibitions about abstraction, the Southwestern desert, and 21st century approaches to landscape photography. Eric’s taste for photography is omnivorous, but he is especially interested in reviewing photographs of people and landscape.

Benjamin Rasmussen is an American/Faroese photographer who grew up in the Philippines and moved to the United States as an adult. His work explores ideas of belonging and national identity.

He is the founder and curator of Pattern, which operates a photobook library, holds exhibitions and runs workshops focused on the intersection of the documentary and art worlds.

Marijana Rayl is current curating an exhibition on Street Photography from 1945-70, scheduled to open Fall 2023 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Prior to joining the Nelson-Atkins in Spring 2022, she worked in the Photography department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2018-2022. Before entering the museum world, Marijana was an Associate Specialist of photography at Phillips auction in New York and has previously worked at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Christie’s Auctions in New York City.

Rayl does not attend reviews to find artists for exhibition or acquisition. Rather, she can answer specific questions about work or series, discuss the relationship between subject and presentation, introduce historical context, help edit or sequence, and provide insight into the needs and processes of large museums. Video and new media, fine art, documentary, and commercial photography welcome. Pure landscape and traditional nudes, less so.

Kimberly Roberts is a Senior Curatorial Assistant in the Photography Department at the Denver Art Museum where she helps organize a photography lectures series and has worked on several exhibitions including New Territory: Landscape Photography Today, Curious Visions: Toward Abstract Photography, Other People’s Pictures: Gifts from the Robert and Kerstin Adams Collection, among others.

Prior to joining the DAM in 2017, Kimberly was a Research Fellow at the Clyfford Still Museum where she researched the photography collection in the museum archives. She has also been an affiliate art history faculty member at Metropolitan State University since 2013, teaching courses in the history of photography and 20th/21st century European and American Art. Kimberly is interested in viewing all types of portfolios but can provide limited feedback on commercial, fashion, and travel photography.

Roula Seikaly is an Oakland-based independent curator, writer, and Senior Editor at Humble Arts Foundation. Her curatorial practice addresses contemporary photography and new media, social justice efforts in contemporary art, exhibition making, and institutional critique. She is interested in seeing projects by emerging and early career artists (high school, BFA and MFA candidates, artists working outside institutional contexts) that demonstrate strong conceptual and aesthetic foundations. Narrative, documentary, process- and research-based projects are all of interest, while commercial, stock, nude, still life, and traditional landscapes are not.

As a representative of Humble Arts Foundation (HAF), she is looking for projects that we may highlight through artist interviews, exhibitions, and publication reviews.

Mark Sink, a private art consultant, represents and curates local and international cutting-edge fine art photography. He is a co-founder of The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, founder of the Month of Photography Denver, The Big Picture street art projects, and the Denver Collage Club. His personal fine art photography is shown and collected worldwide. Currently, he is specializing in wet-plate collodion photography and collage. Kristen Hatgi Sink and Mark run studio photography services that include, portraits, products, architecture, and fashion. @marksink

Aline Smithson is a visual artist, editor, and educator. She has exhibited widely at national and international institutions and her work has been featured in major publications. She is the Founder of Lenscratch, a daily journal on photography. In 2016, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commissioned Smithson to create work for the Faces of Our Planet exhibition. In 2018 and 2019, her work was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of the Taylor Wessing Prize. The Magenta Foundation published her retrospective monograph, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography, Kris Graves Projects published her book, LOST II: Los Angeles. Peanut Press released her monograph, Fugue State, in Fall of 2021. She has curated and juried exhibitions for a number of galleries, organizations, and publications, including Review Santa Fe, Critical Mass, Flash Forward, and the Griffin Museum. In 2022, she was named a Hasselblad Heroine.

Nathaniel M. Stein is Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He previously held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the RISD Museum, and holds degrees in art history from Wesleyan University (B.A.) and Brown University (M.A. and PhD). Stein has organized exhibitions on historical and contemporary photography from South Asia, Europe, and North America, including recent projects with Gillian Wearing, Sohrab Hura, David Hartt, and John Edmonds. His books include The Natural World (2022), The Levee: A Photographer in the American South (2020), and Interference: Andre Bradley and Paul Anthony Smith (2017). He is currently working on a major exhibition about photographer Nancy Rexroth.

Stein responds best to technically and conceptually rigorous bodies of work. He is less interested in classic landscape or figure photography. He is always happy to share insight on how museums and museum-based curators work.

Tracey Woods is the Director of Photography at The Luupe and a freelance creative consultant and producer. Prior to this she was the photo director at Essence Communications.

Tracey has produced editorial and commercial content for a variety of brands including: Mari by Marsai, Ebony, InStyle Specials, EmblemHealth and others. She has conducted portfolio reviews, participated in panels and sat on juries for some of the top photography organizations around the globe including: Eddie Adams Workshop, Leica Women’s Summit, New York Times Portfolio Review, Palm Spring Photo Festival, Photoville, Photolucida, PhotoVogue and World Press Photo.

As an artist and photographer, Woods draws inspiration from beauty in the unexpected. During summer 2020, her signature artwork adorned the windows of Macy’s flagship stores in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. She earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree in photography from Pratt Institute and her Bachelor of Arts from Rhode Island College.