US+U Gallery Staff

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Melissa Starke serves as our Director & Curator. Outside of the gallery she's held the position of Department Coordinator for Fine Arts at the Fashion Institute of Technology for 15 years, has 10+ years experience teaching in FIT’s pre-college program, for which she acts as the Fine Arts department liaison & is a mentor to alum that are hired to teach for their first time. She is advisor to Urban Studio FIT, whose mission is to connect students to participate in hands- on creative projects with organizations external to the college, a majority of which are public art based.  Ms. Starke has organized and curated exhibitions for the last decade each year in NYC and served as head curator for Torche’ Galerie in Belmar, NJ from 2013-2015.  She recently earned her MA in the Art Market (Dec 2020), a degree pointed at Gallery Management, the Non- Profit Sector, Art Advertising/ Marketing and Art Business Practices. She is an Italian American Artist (Painting & Sculpture) who holds a BFA in Fine Arts as well as an AAS in Business Administration. 

 

Amanda Ioco holds the position of Education Coordinator for US+U. Ms. Ioco works closely with teaching artists to develop comprehensive curricula for our “Studio Sundays” workshop series and assists the teaching artists with the students the day of the class. Our curriculums are learning outcome based and age appropriate. Ms. Ioco is also a teaching assistant and studio manager for the The Art Studio Workshop in Yonkers, which was founded by a local artist. In addition, she is a part time dance instructor at 5678 Dance NY. All of these positions add a wealth of knowledge about education, art education and classroom management/working with youth. Ms. Ioco also instructs our adult bi-weekly life drawing workshop and developed our senior remote drawing class Capturing Corners: Personal Perspective, where participants learn how to draw their quarantine environment. She is an Italian/Cuban American Artist who holds a BFA in Fine Arts.

 

Alexandra Momin is a Cuban American Artist, who has 25 years’ experience in the photo world. She’s worked in traditional dark rooms since the 1990s & currently holds the position of Producer for NYC based Picturehouse-a post production photo house where she works with photographers, agents, brands and designers for their post production needs- both film and digital. Ms. Momin has taught photo workshops in our Studio Sunday program and brings that knowledge to the youth who take her classes.  She is also fluent Spanish which enables the workshops she teaches to be more inclusive. Ms. Momin began exhibiting with US+U in 2016 after coming to see a show, did a residency in 2018 and became our Resident Artist afterwards. Her position in the gallery for the past 4 years has consistently given the public the opportunity to count on seeing her regularly and come to her with questions related to her personal practice /expertise.

 

Henry Burgos is a Dominican America Self Taught Artist. Henry began showing with the gallery in 2016 after coming in to see an exhibition, and was a 2019 Artist in Resident. Henry has taught youth workshops with us and plays a key role in our new program Community pARTners as a lead art instructor. For the past 5 years Henry has helped to prep the gallery for shows and handles lighting as well.  Outside of the gallery he has held the position of Youth Specialist Case Manager at the Children's Village where he also coordinated an art program for the residents. In addition, he is founder/lead designed of the widely known local clothing brand Bulb and Arrow. Henry was raised in Yonkers and recently became a Yonkers Fire- Fighter.

 

Valerie Spalek was born in Caracas Venezuela and attended the Central University of Venezuela studying International Affairs before coming to the United States. She is a gallery assistant and has been volunteering with US+U since 2017. She is a self taught artist, who has benefitted from her position at the gallery, sitting in on art workshops and bringing her younger sister in for the youth classes. Other interests include language- she is currently bilingual (Spanish/English) and grand débutant level in French. She assists us in classes as a translator when needed and also provides us with other admin support.