Our members
Sage Tucker-Ketcham (b. 1978, Randolph, VT), a 14 generation Vermont native builds lush scenes of foliage through layered paintings of her environment. Long daily meditative walks inform the canvas as weeds and native plants emerge flourishing from memory. Often disregarded, yet growing where no one would expect, blooms of daisies, black-eyed Susans and grasses thrive on the canvas, as their bold, saturated hues, plume and expand. The vibrant biosphere Tucker-Ketcham depicts hyperphantasia-like abilities, sheds expectations of natural color and builds a thickly infused ambiance, even allowing the atmosphere to mingle with these plants and to become an amplified character.
Katie Davis (b.1979 in Ohio) grew up on a small dairy farm in rural Ohio, and spent college summers living in National Parks, working as a hotel maid and a waitress. These varied, tactile experiences inform her approach to painting, an approach that is open to magic, adventure, and curiosity. Currently, Katie is a full time artist, full time mother of three, and a full time art professor at Columbus College of Art & Design. Her work has shown in major cities such as Miami, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, and Columbus. Katie is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a Griffith Big Idea grant. Her work is published in New American Paintings, Archer Magazine, INPA 10, among other publications and reviews. Katie is a member of the Long Island Studio Collective in New York, and she is represented by The Camp Gallery in Miami.
Laura Sanders (b. 1966, Detroit, MI) is a painter who lives and works in Columbus, OH, and maintains a studio in Long Island City, NY. She received her BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH, in 1988. Sanders has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums across the United States and abroad. In 2025, her work was the subject of a mid-career survey, Laura Sanders: Force of Nature, at The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH. Recent solo exhibitions include Her Habitat, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH, 2024, and Shifting Baselines, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH, 2021. In 2022, she both curated and showcased work in the group exhibition To Die For at Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH. Additionally, Sanders’ work was recently included in Beyond the Present: Collecting for the Future, The Christine Mack Collection, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY; Here’s Looking at You, Plato Gallery, New York, NY; Belonging: The Long Island City Studio Collective, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH; Rewilding, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Playful Perspectives: Staff Reflections on Play, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; The Scenic Route, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; Shape of an Image, curated by Sasha Bogojev, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong; and Xenia: Crossroads in Portrait Painting, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Midwest Edition, Issue No. 77, and as an Editor’s Pick in Midwest Edition, Issue No. 149. It is held in many public and private collections, including the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; the Scantland Family Collection, Columbus, OH; the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, West Palm Beach, FL; and the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH. Sanders has received a number of grants from arts organizations, including the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award in 2011 and the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award in 2009, 2013, and 2019. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA, and the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA.
Erika b Hess is a painter, the Artistic Director of Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution, and the host the podcast I Like Your Work, showcasing contemporary artists. Hess’s work has been exhibited internationally in cities such as New York, London, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphia. She has been featured in numerous publications and lectures widely. Based in Columbus, Ohio, and Long Island City, New York, Hess is represented by Contemporary Art Matters in Columbus. She earned her BFA from Wright State University and her MFA fromBoston University.
Daina Higgins is a multi-media painter whose studio work is informed by her background as a graffiti artist. She paints in oil, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, and spray paint. In 2025 her gallery, Contemporary Art Matters, released a catalog entitled "Growing Up Graffiti", with an essay by Jonathan Stevenson. She has been featured in sixteen solo exhibitions since 2005. In the fall of 2023 she mounted a solo exhibition at the SUNY Westchester Community College Art Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), Thomas VanDyke Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), and The Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia, PA). She has been featured in publications including Two Coats of Paint, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, ArtNews, and The Village Voice. In 2006 Roberta Smith reviewed her exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in The New York Times. In 2006 her graffiti art was featured in Nicholas Ganz’ book Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents. Higgins has been awarded numerous grants including the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, FST Studio Projects Fund Grant, The Artist’s Fellowship Grant, and the Silas H. Rhodes Merit Scholarship to attend the School of Visual Arts, where she earned her BFA in 2001. Her work is in the public collections of the Columbus Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. She is a member of the Long Island City Studio Collective in Queens, NY. She is represented by Contemporary Art Matters in Columbus, Ohio. Higgins received her MFA from Queens College, CUNY in 2009.
Adrian Hatfield makes work examining the visual language strategies of science, pop culture and fine art history in conveying unfathomable subject matter. Recently, his focused has narrowed to address the overwhelming reality of our unfolding environmental catastrophe. His works are included in the public collections of The University of Michigan, The South Bend Museum of Art, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, and The University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland. Solo exhibition venues include Chimaera Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, The South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend IN, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL, and Biggin Gallery, Auburn University. Two- person and small group exhibitions venues include The Butcher’s Daughter, New York, NY, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, New York, NY and Jack the Pelican Presents, New York, NY. Publications include The Manifest Press International Painting Annual, Fresh Paint Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine and Essay’d.
Elham Bayati is an Iranian-born, U.S.-based interdisciplinary artist working across mixed media, collage, print, and painting. Her practice is rooted in layering, both materially and conceptually, reflecting an episodic way of seeing shaped by migration, memory, and lived experience between cultures. Drawing from Persian visual traditions, textile patterns, and personal narratives, Bayati constructs dense, layered compositions that explore identity, womanhood, and the tension between past and present. Her work weaves together fragments of memory, emotion, and cultural history, creating spaces where multiple temporalities and voices coexist. Bayati has exhibited internationally and received First Place from the Ohio Art League. She is a faculty member at the Columbus College of Art & Design.
b. 1972, Napoleon, OH Using diverse materials and techniques to create rich surfaces and depict resplendent habitats, Sarah Fairchild’s dazzling mixed-media landscapes incorporate painting, silkscreen, fabric, crystals, metallic foil, and flocking. Her work reflects a deep concern for the environment, both creating and representing natural forms through a synthetic lens. Drawing on the ancient concept of Anima Mundi, she explores the idea of a world soul and the intrinsic connection between all living things. Fairchild has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her institutional exhibitions include The Gilded Wild at the Columbus College of Art and Design’s Beeler Gallery and Printed Textiles at the Schweinfurth Arts Center, Auburn, NY. In 2024, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition, Anima Mundi, at Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH. Fairchild completed three public projects commissioned by Arts Brookfield, including Bloom at One Liberty Plaza, NYC, and Cruciferous at the Grace Building, NYC. Recently she produced two print editions with Powerhouse Arts for Haystack Editions, continuing her exploration of printmaking and collaborative processes. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and Studio Visit Magazine. It is held in public and private collections including The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio; The State Palace of the Hubei Province, China; and Ohio State University, Wexner Center Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. In 1994, Fairchild earned her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design and is currently represented by Contemporary Art Matters Gallery.
Jodi Lightner is a Professor of Art at Montana State University Billings where she teaches courses that involve pencils, paint, and presses and is chair of the Art Department. She received her MFA in painting from Wichita State University, Kansas. Her work centers on the fragility of built structures as metaphors for relationship and trust and she enjoys building an exhibition to suit each individual gallery space. Lightner has exhibited her work in Germany, China, Italy, New York, California, Oregon, Kansas, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina. She received an Artist Innovation Award from the Montana Arts Council in 2021.
Julie Himel b. 1973, Toronto, Ontario, carries a Diploma of Fine Art from Langara College in Vancouver, a Bachelor of Fine Art Honours Degree from York University, and a Graduate Diploma from the Toronto School of Art. Her award winning paintings can be found in private collections internationally, public collections including The University of Calgary, Calgary’s Civic Art Collection, Westfield State University, the Armenian Centre Art Collection Canada, and several corporate collections nationwide. She is represented by Foster/White Gallery in Seattle Washington, and Stremmel Gallery in Reno Nevada. She is the recipient of the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Himel’s work is about human experience. And in that theme, she looks closer, to the elements of that experience, to worlds lived and imagined, the spiritual and the emotional, memory and promise. Her study of space is rooted in the understanding of landscape as both an encounter and an image. It’s in the balancing act of grounding and departure—always looking for the light through the tangle of life. It’s in decay, not as destruction, but as catalyst: a signpost for renewal, growth and reclamation. And it’s in honesty, about creating a portrait of landscape as it is: something apprehended and unknowable. Paint is the medium she uses to formalize the possibility of a place—a place alive, mutable and shared, a character in our collective unconscious.