From time to time on this page, we will profile individual department faculty and their recent activities. For spring 2012, we introduce Associate Professor of Art Ken Fandell, who joins the Department and the College this year.

After 12 years of teaching at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Ken is looking forward to the challenges of working with a new and very different group of students at Harvey Mudd College. At SAIC he was known for teaching an eclectic range of courses from Introductions to Photographic Image Making to more advanced classes covering specific themes and theories, including one called Nothing. During 2011-2012 he served as Chair of the Department of Photography. He is hopeful bringing his ideas to this new environment will take them in new directions and help shape new conversations.

Ken's artistic practice is as diverse as his teaching. He works with drawing, sculpture, sound, video, text, collage, installation and photography. Themes in his work often revolve around oppositions, such as small and large, near and far and the quotidian and the transcendent. He has shown extensively nationally and internationally. Recent projects include an 8' x 24' photomontage mural of images of his finger at the Honolulu Museum of Art and a text based installation at the Chicago Cultural Center. His newest body of work deals with the rational versus the irrational. A solo exhibition of this work, titled "Lasers and Fog and Crystals and Waves and Grids" will be on view at Tomlinson Kong Gallery in New York this fall. 

In addition to his teaching and art making, Ken is a runner (eighteen marathons to date) and avid surfer. With his arrival here in Southern California he is looking forward to pursuing both year round.

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