Blue Hippo Teaching Artists
Blue Hippo Teaching Artists
Iliya Mirochnik
Originally from Odessa, Ukraine, Iliya immigrated to the United States in the early 1990’s with his family. He studied in LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Art and in the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts in New York. Iliya studied in St. Petersburg, Russia in the prestigious I.E. Repin State Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from which he received his Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting. He has been recipient of a number of prestigious scholarships and awards both in the United States and in Russia, winning the “First Place” award in the American Portrait Society’s International Portrait Competition, and developing an original design for a public monument in Miami, Florida. Iliya has spent several years Professor of Painting in the Illustration Department of Ringling College of Art and Design, and at present work sin character development for ZA/UM studios. He lives Sarasota, Florida with his wife and son.
Kaspar Tamsalu
Kaspar Tamsalu is an artist and designer at ZA/UM Studio, where worked on the acclaimed Disco Elysium and Disco Elysium: The Final Cut. Classically trained at the Repin Art Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia and an honored graduate of the MFA program at Estonian Academy of Art, Kaspar has had a distinguished career as an illustrator , instructor and head of the painting department at Pallas University in Tartu, Estonia. He currently lives in Brighton, UK.
Amy Karki
Amy Karki is a photographer/artist originally from Portland, Oregon, where she earned degrees in Photography and Art History and did post-grad work in the field of Art Education. Inspired by nature, history, and travel, she has created and shown work throughout the Northwest, New York and Europe. Amy currently lives in steamy Sarasota, Florida, where she teaches art and photography at the local community art center, and runs Blue Hippo Artists alongside her partner, Iliya Mirochnik.
Amy believes that art is about connection as much as self-expression, and is always interested in new collaborations and dialogues, as well as different ways to capture the senses and spirit of people, places and moments..
Sara Nguyen Harris
Sara is a muralist and illustrator who has recently returned to her home state of Florida after living for many years in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a BFA in art and developed her career as a muralist shortly after. Sara has been designing and executing murals in the greater Atlanta area for over ten years now, collaborating with big distributing brands and restaurants to change up blank walls. You can even catch one of her “Nguyeners” in season 4, episode 5 of Ozark!
Anne Tochka
Anne Tochka is a contemporary painter living and working on Cape Cod. Her paintings are an immersion in nature originating from her ambles about the Cape and frequently from plein air studies.
Before becoming a full time painter, Anne attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and graduated with a BFA in Communications Design: Illustration. Educated as a visual storyteller, she further developed this skill in her professional life as a visual merchandiser and designer. Anne brings this training to her current work, using brushstrokes and color to describe the complex beauty in the surrounding world. Through painting, she strives to convey a feeling that places the viewer not just in that location, but in that specific moment in time.
Anne has completed artist residencies in Romania, Mexico, and Peru. She teaches at the Cape Cod Art Center, and currently works out of her studio and gallery at 50 Pearl St on the HyArts Campus in Hyannis.