Teaching Staff

Joe Bruns (He/Him)
Teaches for Studio, Offsite-Community, and Schools Programs

Joe is a Los Angeles-based artist/activist/designer/ educator. After earning his B.F.A. with a focus in art history, sculpture and mixed media installation at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, he pursued a post-baccalaureate degree in urban art education and state certification as an educator. Bruns’ artwork deals with the relationship between absence and desire, and has appeared in solo and group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Southern Graphics Conference, Tom of Finland Foundation, and Printed Matter NYC. As an Armory Teaching Artist, Bruns relishes those moments in which his artmaking skills, fused to larger ideas and thinking processes, help his students develop their own creativity and communication abilities.

Gabriella Carboni (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio Program

MFA - Cranbrook Academy of Art
2018 Armory Fellow

Gabriella is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Boston, MA. In 2017, she received her MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Gabriella moved to LA shortly after graduating from Cranbrook. She is also a Drawing Instructor in Art Center College of Design’s public programs and was a 2019 Armory Fellow.

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Jocelyn Casas (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio, Offsite-Community, Schools, and Children Investigate the Environment/Field Trip Programs

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design
BFA - UC Irvine
2018 Armory Fellow

Jocelyn is a Los Angeles-based painter. Her projects include sculpture, installation, murals, and wearables. Her work has been exhibited and published in the US and abroad. In 2016 she was the artist in residence at the Fundacion Sebastian, La Soledad Residency, in Mexico City. Jocelyn Casas received her B.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine and her M.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design. Her projects include painting, sculpture and installations that seek to redefine how Chicano art can look like today. The work navigates her fluid identity as a first-generation Mexican American using the uncanny and humor to incorporate family history and cultural heritage. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited and published in the United States and abroad. Casa completed her Armory Teaching Artist Fellowship in 2018. As an arts educator, she believes that creativity is a fundamental process of learning that can inspire life and behavioral transformations, which can in turn have a positive impact on the individual and their communities. She lives, works and teaches all around Los Angeles.

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Emily Thorpe Coogan (She/Her)
Teaches for Schools and Children Investigate the Environment/Field Trip Programs

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design

Emily's printmaking, photography, and drawing explores California landscape and architecture, and engages a critical reflection of her own self-proscribed expectations of what her life should look like, as informed by patriarchal structures. Emily has exhibited her work in Los Angeles and teaches printmaking at Westland School.

Andrew K. Currey (He/Him)

Teaches for Studio Program

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design
2016 Armory Fellow

Andrew is Co-Founder of the Painting and Drawing Association of North Texas. He restored 15th Century paintings for the Vatican through the Lorenzo Di Medici School in Florence, Italy. In 2014, he was the Artist-in-Residence of Shankill Castle in Paulstown, Ireland.

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Austyn de Lugo (He/Him)
Teaches for Studio, Offsite-Community, Schools Programs, and Children Investigate the Environment/Field Trip Programs

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design
BFA - American Academy of Art
2018 Armory Fellow

Austyn is an artist working in collage, textiles, and painting. His work is influenced by political portraiture, family photographs, floral photography, and decorative arts. His current body of work draws from his family’s history in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, as well as from revolutionary movements in the Caribbean. He considers the United States’ relationship with its colonies in the Caribbean, and imagines how tropicality can be used as a site of political resistance. Austyn has exhibited work in the United States and abroad. In 2017, he was the Artist-in-Residence at the Fundación Sebastian in Mexico City.

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Adrienne DeVine (She/Her)
Teaches for Schools and Children Investigate the Environment Programs

Pasadena-born/L.A.-based artist Adrienne was inspired by artists Charles White and Betye Saar at an early age. Her mixed-media paintings, drawings, installations and artists’ books broadly examine history, race and culture and are informed by African cosmologies and writing systems. DeVine earned her M.F.A. in Studio Art at Claremont Graduate University in 2017. In 2019, she was nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. DeVine is currently developing an artist’s book project, making abstract painting studies, and creating kinetic wire sculptures.

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Kira Doutt (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio, Schools, and Field Trip Programs

Los Angeles-based artist Kira completed her B.F.A. at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2015 and received her M.F.A. at California Institute of the Arts in 2019. Through installations, paintings, and objects, Kira’s work explores how the body shifts through transitioning landscapes both virtual and physical, addressing disembodiment, projection, and manipulation.

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Valerie Duque (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio Program

Los Angeles-based artist Valeria was born in Cali, Colombia in 1994 and emigrated with her family to Florida in 1999. She attended the University of Florida in 2016; later moving to the Los Angeles area, where she attended earned her M.F.A. at Art Center College of Design in May 2019. Through her photography, video, sculpture, and installation, Duque analyzes the complexities of identity; specifically, the dualism provoked within individuals by cultural and social structures. Her own conflicts as a female immigrant raised in a western society have become the catalysts that have guided her research into analyzing identity and dual consciousness.

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David P. Earle (He/Him)
Teaches for Studio, Schools, and Children Investigate the Environment Programs

MFA - CalArts
2010 Armory Fellow

David has exhibited at LACE, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Monte Vista Projects, Offramp Gallery, Torrance Art Museum, and IFC Center (NYC). He's been an Artist-in-Residence at Side Street Projects and the One Colorado Artist Studio. He is Editor/Curator of The Open Daybook, a perpetual calendar featuring the work of 365 contemporary artists and he serves as Co-Director of Elephant, an artist-run space in Glassell Park. David received his M.F.A from California Institute of the Arts and is a 2010 graduate of the Armory’s Teaching Artist Fellowship Program. In addition to being an Armory Teaching Artist, he currently serves as an adjunct faculty member in CalArts’ School of Critical Studies. Earle has exhibited his work at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Torrance Art Museum, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Armory Center for the Arts, Gallery 312 (Chicago), The IFC Center (New York), and other venues. He has held residencies at Side Street Projects and The Artist's Studio at One Colorado in Pasadena. Earle is the editor, curator and designer of The Open Daybook, a perpetual calendar in book form featuring the work of 365 contemporary artists, published by Mark Batty/Random House; and is a Co-Director of Elephant, an artist-run space in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles.

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Denise M. El-Hoss (She/Her)

Teaches for Studio Program

MFA - CSU Long Beach

Denise is the Armory's Letterpress Studio Director and the Owner/Operator of Figgy Press, a custom letterpress studio. She also taught at CSULB in the Fiber Arts Department.

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Joe Galarza  (He/Him)
Teaches for Studio and Offsite-Community Programs

Joe is a painter, muralist, sculptor, musician, and instrument maker who incorporates ceramics into his art practice. He has been an Armory Teaching Artist for our community program for many years, instructing in community and youth detention centers. He also plays bass for the internationally known music group Aztlan Underground. Joe Galarza is a Xica-indio painter, muralist, sculptor (clay, wood, and paper mache), musician (bass, native instrumentation), instrument maker (native flutes, drums, & rattles) and arts educator. He grew up in El Sereno, an area of Los Angeles long-associated with economic inequality and gang activity. Through his artwork and music, Galarza strives to preserve and share the culture of indigenous peoples, provoke questions, and address urban social issues. Galarza has been a Teaching Artist for several years, providing instruction for system-impacted young people in neighborhood community centers and at juvenile justice system sites. He strives to demonstrate to his students that the arts can provide a path toward toward living their best lives and taking charge of their own future, despite any obstacles they face. Galarza engages in regular professional development through the Armory’s education department and the Art for Incarcerated Youth Network to ensure his knowledge of trauma-informed care teaching practices and social emotional wellbeing remain up to date.

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Sergio Hernandez (He/Him)

Teaches for Offsite-Community Programs

MFA - CalArts
2008 Armory Fellow

Sergio is an installation artist who produces work in the US and Europe. He is Co-Editor of literary publication Vulcan: A Literary Disillusion and studied screen-printing under master printers Kris Pilon, Jon Miner, and Stan Baden. He is also the Founder of streetwear brand The Zombie Movement. An eight-year veteran of the Armory’s Teaching Artist program, Sergio Hernandez teaches multimedia arts and provides mentorship to at-risk and in-crisis youth through the Armory’s Community Programs initiative, frequently at L.A. County juvenile detention facilities and at the Learning Works @Homeboy facility. His creative practice focuses on screen-printing, graffiti, line drawing, and writing. Hernandez is a co-founder and co-editor of Vulcan: A Literary Disillusion and the founder of Zombie Movement, an underground streetwear line; and has participated in exhibitions and readings throughout Los Angeles. He holds a B.A. in English/creative writing from Cal State Long Beach; an M.F.A. in writing/critical studies/integrated media from California Institute of the Arts; was a 2007-08 participant in the Armory’s acclaimed Teaching Artist Fellowship Program; and stays current in his teaching practices, particularly around trauma-informed care and social emotional wellness, through regular participation the Armory’s teacher professional development program. 

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Grace Lacques (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio and Off-site Community Programs

Grace began her theater studies in France, studying master Etienne Decroux’s physical theater techniques and continuing her eight years of acting training in Italy, San Francisco, and LA. She adapted these techniques for children and has taught drama for all ages for over 25 years. Grace is a Co-Founding Member of the Samai Theater group, whose original production Silent Trafficking was performed at UCLA, UCI, and UCSB.

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Matt MacFarland (He/Him)
Teaches for Studio Program

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design
2004 Armory Fellow

Matt is a contemporary artist and cartoonist whose ongoing graphic narrative Dark Pants follows a mysterious pair of pants through LA as they impact the lives of whomever wears them. He compiled his more than 14 years of teaching experience into a self-published comic The Teaching Chronicles. His work has been written about in The LA Times, Comics Bulletin, Comics Grinder, Artillery, and X-tra Online. He has exhibited in 356 Mission Road, the Vincent Price Museum, the Armory, and Torrance Museum of Art.

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Tracy Nakayama  (She/Her)

Teaches for Studio, Offsite-Community, Schools, and Children Investigate the Environment/Field Trip Programs

MFA - School of Visual Arts
2011 Armory Fellow

Tracy is a fine artist whose works are in permanent collections in the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Dikeou Collection (Denver), Third Man Records, and Will Oldham. She has created illustrations for ad campaigns at Adidas, Nike, and Vogue Japan. She has collaborated with Japanese fashion brands United Bamboo and Takeo Kikuchi, worked with music label Drag City, and is trained in Ikebana and native Hawaiian floristry. L.A.-based Armory Teaching Artist Tracy Nakayama was born in 1974 in Honolulu, Hawaii. She earned her B.F.A. at California College of Arts and Crafts in 1996, studying under printmakers Jack Ford, Ken Rignall, and beat poet Michael McClure. Nakayama took her M.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts and is a 2011 graduate of the Armory’s Teaching Artist Fellowship Program. She has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Scandinavia; including MoMA PS1 and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her work is included in the Judith Rothschild Contemporary Drawing Collection and in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Elonda Norris (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio and Schools Programs

MFA - Claremont Graduate University
2007 Armory Fellow

Elonda has shown nationally and throughout LA. Using household items, furniture, and food, her artwork invites us to question our relationship to convenience and consumption while reaffirming our connections to each other. Elonda is a Co-Founder of Summercamp's ProjectProject, an alternative artspace in El Sereno.

Michelle Ohm (She/Her)
Teaches for Studio and Schools Programs

MFA - Otis College of Art & Design
2010 Armory Fellow

Michelle has been teaching at the Armory for 10 years. She was an Armory Fellow in 2010 and received her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Michelle has exhibited in Samuel Freeman Gallery, LA Municipal Art Gallery, Forest Lawn Museum, and Davidson Galleries (Seattle). She was Artist-in-Residence at Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam). She sees teaching as an opportunity to inspire and empower. As a teacher, her goal is to challenge, engage and give her students confidence in their ability to make artwork. Ideally, she wants students to feel a sense of accomplishment with their portfolios and an urge to continue taking and making art. 

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