MICA GRAD SHOW 2015 features the culminating work of more than 150 of MICA’s graduate students in innovative and inspiring exhibitions and critiques, gallery talks and presentations, public programs, a symposium, and student-curated installations throughout Baltimore City. For additional information on MICA GRAD SHOW 2015 events and exhibitions, visit micagradshow.com.

MFA in Illustration Practice students will present their work to guest critics during two gallery critiques open to the public. Shelley Spector and Calista Brill will be at the April 6 critiques, and Kimberly Ellen Hall and Rachael Cole will be at the April 9 critiques.

Spector has been actively engaged in Philadelphia’s arts community for years as a respected artist, innovative gallery owner, and champion of emerging talent. The Philadelphia Museum of Art presented Spector’s first solo museum exhibition, Keep the Home Fires Burning, in March 2015. Her multidisciplinary works are part of many private and public collections.

Brill is senior editor at First Second, a publisher of graphic novels based in New York, where she acquires, edits, and publishes graphic novels for readers of all ages and temperaments. Her particular interests include comics about science and teen angst. Before working at First Second, Brill was an editor at Disney.

Hall’s studio is called Nottene. She started a daily drawing practice to simply appreciate the things around her, and now her illustration work comes from a practice of storytelling through drawing. She studied textiles at Central Saint Martins in London, and she has worked in print, pattern publishing, fashion, and art internationally.

Cole is the art director at Schwartz & Wade Books. She works on picture, middle-grade, and young adult books. She has illustrated and produced a line of screen-printed cushions called Village Pillows, and recently collaborated with illustrators Leah Goren and Julia Rothman to produce a line.

Image: Sung Na ’15 (Illustration Practice MFA), spread (detail) for picture book The Bear & I, mixed media and digital, 2014.