Annaliesa Connor-Meissner
Art Department Chair
719-587-7639
aconnormeissner@adams.edu
I am Annaliesa Connor-Meissner and I am pleased to be serving in the Art department here at Adams. My areas of service are the department chair and teaching amazing ceramics! A little bit about me, I am originally from the beautiful twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the Southern Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago is the original land of the steel pan, the only instrument created in the 20th century, Calypso, our oral tradition in song and limbo, our unofficial national dance form that dates back to our African ancestors.
These cultural art forms have influenced my own art making since I lived on the island until 2011. I completed my undergraduate degree in Art at the University of the West Indies and Completed my graduate studies in Art here at Adams State University.
I enjoy bringing my Caribbean aesthetic with its vibrations, cultural expressions, color, and innovative approaches to the art department. Those are fused with the established norms of conventional art to add to the diversity of the program here at Adams.
My work is always inspired by nature and it is predominantly sculptural. Conceptually, my work focuses on human conditions that unite us as human beings.
I am excited about the possibilities that art affords us to create!
Peter Costas
Assistant Professor of Art
719-587-7823
pcostas@adams.edu
Peter Evan Costas is a Colorado-based artist who uses mixed media to reconstruct and unearth memories and imagination. Through a combination of lens-based work, sound, sculpture, performance, and painting his work drives to both communicate the veteran experience and to use memory as a catalyst for fiction. Much of his practice relies on eliciting sensory experiences around sound and touch and how they affect our heavy reliance on the visual. Having served on submarines as a Sonar Technician in the US Navy from 2011 to 2016, his personal experience within the military is a constant totem of time, growth, humor, trauma, and secrecy. Peter Evan Costas received his MFA from School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2022 and is represented by FLXST Contemporary Gallery.
Anthony Guntren
Assistant Professor of Art
My art emerges from interplay between artistic process, creative meditation, and human interaction. Works feature open spaces that evoke contemplation on unseen forces, radiating energy of the natural world that churns around a sculpture and its surrounding space. I am drawn to sculpture, because I find that sculpture calls attention to the movement of the viewer and the stillness of the object. Artworks often feature abstract forms that offer open spaces to capture and slow down the hustle and bustle of our private minds and physical bodies. There is a secret life between things. By taking a moment to stop and look, time can briefly slow down creating a moment in which consciousness connects with the construct.
As a local CO artist, my goal is to continue the pursuit of artistic discovery while creating meaningful sculpture that interacts with the transmission of human energy as people go about their daily lives. I have dedicated the last 15 years to both art as well as teaching, and I fiercely pursue the various processes and material explorations involved with producing contemporary sculpture. I proudly boast the placement of works in public art programs throughout the US, including numerous permanent AIPP Colorado dedications.
Mary Wilhelm
Assistant Professor of Art
719-587-7301
mwilhelm@adams.edu
https://www.marycwilhelm.com/
Mary Wilhelm was born in Wichita, Kansas, but raised in the swampy, suburban landscape of Tampa, Florida. Her early life was inspired by nature, cartoons, the outlandish stories of Florida Man, as well as the work of surrealist artist Salvador Dali. In 2015 , she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a focus in Painting/Drawing from Florida State University, and in 2021 she received her Master’s of Fine Arts degree from Arizona State University in Painting. She is currently an Assistant Drawing and Painting Professor at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. In her free time you can find her hiking in nature, rockhounding, and intentionally spooking tourists.
Her work explores the absurdity of human behavior and the ways in which animals can serve as a metaphor for our own idiosyncrasies. She is drawn to the humor and playfulness of the animal world, and uses it as a way to invite viewers to engage with her work and to challenge their own assumptions about the natural world.
Ana Melendez
Assistant Professor of Art
719-587-7823
amelendez@adams.edu
