Elías Alejo
Community Outreach Liaison
Elías MX is a multimedia artist and organizer specializing in printmaking, installation, and arts access education. They were born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, and moved to Amherst, Massachusetts to pursue their BA. While in Massachusetts. they worked and organized extensively with local and national organizations around migrant workers' rights, reproductive access, disability justice, and alternative forms to the carceral system. Soon after working on Capitol Hill as a legislative and administrative intern, Elías’ felt that their focus needed to be alongside the people that are most affected by policies not governmental entities. This realization shifted their career and organizing efforts to bridging the gaps in arts access and arts education through a holistic framework. Now at Art Division they strive to provide art access for all by executing public programming, developing community partnerships, and providing spaces for students to connect with one another.

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Matías Anaya
​Music Instructor 
Matías specializes in teaching guitar, bass, keyboard, percussion and music production. As a musician she has her own solo project and has performed with a wide variety of local artists and bands. Her primary genres include Latinx folk, cumbia, rock, punk, and house.

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Javier Carrillo
Exhibitions and Operations Manager
Javier Carrillo is a Los Angeles-based artist. His work is profoundly influenced by the working-class neighborhoods of his upbringing in Los Angeles. He has exhibited in various museums and galleries such as Craig Krull Gallery, Bakersfield Museum of Art, and The Mexican Consulate General of Los Angeles among others. His work is part of the private collection of Stewart and Lynda Resnick, USC Fisher Museum of Art, Georgia College & State University, and more. Carrillo currently teaches fundamentals and advanced printmaking at Art Division.

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Fabian Cereijido 
Art History Instructor  
Fabián Cereijido is an artist, professor and author. He has lived in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, New York City and, since 2004 in California, where in 2011 he obtained a PhD in art history. He currently teaches Art History in colleges and other educational institutions. Among other subjects, he’s written about current modes of art censorship, the similarities between Goya’s Disasters of War and Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and the art produced in Latin America during the recent continental anti-neo-liberal revolt. His video-installations, drawings and sculptures conjure up fictitious travels in milk and everyday rituals

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Alicia Cheatham 
Assistant to Managing Director  
Alicia Cheatham has been working in the arts industry in Southern California ever since moving to Los Angeles from the Pacific Northwest. She began her arts career managing IT and data technology for galleries and freelanced as a graphic designer for arts institutions. While teaching K-6 grades for the Los Angeles Unified School District, she spearheaded arts programming at her school sites. She has recently earned her MFA and works as an independent curator. As Assistant to the Managing Director, Alicia’s primary goal at Art Division is to manage the donor database and streamline communications

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Joel Freeman
​Bookbinding Instructor
Joel Freeman is artist and art worker living in LA’s Westlake neighborhood. He works across art mediums — photography, printmaking, found material, ceramics, books — and with an eye towards process. Joel has learned from both craft and commercial book binderies and has been teaching bookbinding workshops and classes at Art Division since 2019.

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Alina Kawai
Director of Programming, Painting instructor 
Alina Kawai is an artist with a focus on abstract painting and received her MFA from UC Santa Barbara and her BFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Since spring 2023 Alina joined Art Division as a painting instructor and is now the Director of Programing. In addition to Alina's studio practice she has taught visual arts at all levels from kindergarten to college and finds joy teaching painting and engaging with the community through art.

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Rebecca Levinson
​Painting Instructor  
Rebecca Levinson is an artist born and raised in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in History from Brown University and studied painting in the certificate program at the New York Studio School. Trained in an atelier-style environment that prioritized working from life, Rebecca carries over a similar approach to her teaching, helping students discover a personal language through developing strong perceptual drawing and painting skills. Painting Fundamentals will focus on a different formal aspect of painting each session, completing weekly assignments that explore drawing, composition, tone, color, materials, and subject matter. As the topics build on each other, students will complete the course with not only an in-depth understanding of each concept, but also an ability to integrate these concepts in the creation of personal work.

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Dan McCleary
Founder and Artistic Director
Dan McCleary founded Art Division in 2010 along with Maria Galicia, Javier Carrillo and Emmanuel Galvez. He now serves as artistic director. In 2010, he realized no art program existed to serve 18 - 27 year olds in the Los Angeles area. He was inspired by the community work done by Francisco Toledo and Demian Flores in Oaxaca, Mexico where he has worked since 2000. Dan is a working artist and exhibits his work throughout the United States and internationally. He has taught art throughout Los Angeles at UCLA, USC and Art Center.

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Luis Motta
Special Projects Coordinator
Luis Hernandez Motta is a multidisciplinary artist and curator born and raised in Los Angeles. He recently received his BA from the University of Los Angeles. As a student, his curated exhibitions would be a mix of his community at UCLA and Art Division's students. As the special project coordinator, Motta leads and helps organize unique projects, collaborates with other institutions, galleries, and artists, and develops opportunities for students to showcase their work. Luis has been part of the Art Division community for over 10 years.

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Cindy Ojeda
Managing Director
Cindy Ojeda is the Managing Director at Art Division. Working closely with Dan McCleary, Cindy has developed and executed organizational development, policies and budgets. Cindy earned her B.A. in Art History and Psychology at UCLA. Cindy spent more than 10 years working as Project Manager at Track 16 Gallery/Smart Art Press in Santa Monica, CA. In addition, Cindy assisted in implementing the Art Exhibition programming at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts. Cindy joined Art Division in its inception. Cindy, a native Angeleno, is passionate about Los Angeles and the population Art Division serves. 

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Leopoldo Peña
​Photography Instructor  
Leopoldo Peña was born in Michoacán, México and has lived in southeast Los Angeles since 1992. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from University of California, Irvine. Currently, he is a Youth Educator Supervisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; part-time lecturer of Latinx Culture at Cal State San Bernardino, and teaches photography at Art Division. He is also a language justice interpreter and spends most of his free time with his son and daughter. His photographic work is centered on two themes: immigration and contemporary environment. He works on long-term documentary projects with an emphasis on everyday life in southeast Los Angeles and Mexican indigenous migrant cultural performance in California. He facilitates P5por7, a photography exchange collaboration at the South Gate Museum. He has exhibited at the South Gate Museum, Asian Pacific Cultural Center in Oakland, the Fowler Museum, Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, The Latino Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, and the UCR/California Museum of Photography. His work is archived at the Los Angeles Library and has appeared in Boom California, La Jornada, StreetNotes, La Opinión, Al Borde, Derive, Grey Magazine, Retina, NACLA: Report on the Americas, B/W Magazine and El Tequio.

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Guillermo Perez
Graphic Designer/Social Media Coordinator, Adobe Illustrator instructor   
Guillermo Perez is a graphic designer from Los Angeles California who has been designing and implementing communication through social media platforms and other more traditional platforms such as printed matter and website design for over ten years. He also teaches an introductory Adobe Illustrator class as a way to introduce students to the world of graphic design. Guillermo has been involved with Art Division for over 8 years, beginning as a student, then as a participant in our teaching programs, then graduating to full-time in-house graphic designer for Art Division.

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Joe Petricca
​ Director of Media Arts / Intro to Film Arts Instructor  
Joe Petricca has taught film at Art Division and served as the department head of the Digital Media Department since 2021. He is the Associate Chair, BFA for the Film Department at ArtCenter College of Design where he has been faculty member since 2022. He also teaches at LACC in their Dual Enrollment program and for the New York Film Academy. He was the Executive Vice Dean at the American Film Institute (AFI) for 20 years. Petricca is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and educator. Petricca curated the film series Testigo/Witness: Goya in the Movies (May 2024) for the Norton Simon Museum in support of the show I Saw It: Francisco de Goya, Printmaker. He served as a guest curator and photographer for the LARIVERX social media pages and is now included in their archives showcase recently exhibited at the Los Angeles Public Library.

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Clem Raigosa
Photoshop instructor
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Clem has been photographing and documenting everyday life since 2004 when he first picked up a 35mm film camera early on in a highschool elective class. Having pursued photography in college, he became an instructional assistant to the photo department at a community college where he discovered a joy in helping others achieve their artistic goals and mentoring students navigating the same coursework he once did. Since then, whether through social media or meeting people through work or life, he has always enjoyed explaining and teaching others about photographic processes and techniques whenever asked about it so that others may use that knowledge to pursue their own artistic visions.

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Victor Reyes
Operations Assistant, Printmaking instructor
Victor Reyes has diligently maintained Art Division's campus as as operations assistant. Through this work, he has showcased his commitment to the artistic environment at Art Division. Victor began as a student at Art Division over 8 years ago. He is also teaching beginning printmaking as part of his work. He actively engages in his own artistic practice, exemplifying a harmonious balance between teaching, working, and personal creative pursuits

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Ana Serrano
Director of Education
Ana Serrano worked in the educational field for over 40 years teaching elementary to university students. After receiving a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from U.C.L.A. in 1996 she taught at CSUN, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Loyola Marymount University. She currently runs the Learn-Do-Teach program at Art Division where she provides instruction on how to plan and teach art to TK through grade 12 students.

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Luis Serrano
​Director of Visual Arts
Luis Serrano is director of Fine Arts at Art Division. Serrano holds an MFA from Otis Art Institute and has painted and drawn for the past 40 years. Along with the fine art practice, Luis has taught general art classes such as Design, Watercolor Painting, and Two and Three-dimensional Design at LA Community Colleges and Ryman Arts. He has taught and mentored in the MFA program for Laguna College of Art and Design. At Art Division Serrano has taught Painting, Figure Drawing and Fundamentals of Drawing.

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Hannah Sloan
Development Assistant
Hannah Sloan has acted as an independent curator, gallery director and art advisor since 2004. After a decade as a gallery director at RoseGallery, Santa Monica, she founded Sloan Projects, a curatorial program that provides a platform for women artists in Los Angeles through public exhibitions and professional development. Since 2021, she has taken an active role in introducing underrepresented artists from Central America to public institutions in the United States. Hannah guest lectures at public universities around Southern California about "the business of art," sharing a wealth of information about navigating the art world from a business perspective.

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Melissa Soriano
Librarian and Office Assistant
Melissa Soriano maintains Art Division’s library. The library is one of the most crucial services provided by Art Division for students and the community to create a supportive and calming environment. The support from instructors, events, and mentors that collectively assist to help students succeed. Thousands of books from hundreds of artists bring indefinite amounts of inspiration to young and bright artists who research, who want to grow, and who want to learn. We believe all of our students should have access to an incredible collection of art books in their area, and interact with fellow artistic peers who share the same passion of the arts. Melissa assists with any of the student’s needs to achieve their creative, educational, and self-sufficient goals at the library, connects with other arts organizations who are in need of art books to curate Satellite Libraries in their space, and contributes archival, library, and art research resources to Art Division’s Library Hub. Melissa was a former student at Art Division and was part of Art Division's Oaxaca Exchange Program. She received her B.A. at San Francisco State University in Cinema with a Minor in Women and Gender Studies.