Arts Commission

Commissioner Karl Duncan, Chair, is the Executive Director of the Poeh Cultural Center at the Pueblo of Pojoaque. Karl is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he received a BA in Museum Studies and is currently part of the first cohort for the MFA program in Cultural Administration at IAIA. Karl has worked as the Curator for the Buffalo Thunder Resort Art Collection. He serves as Vice-President of the Continuous Pathways Foundation and a board member of Buffalo Thunder Incorporated and Silver Bullet Productions. Since his arrival at the Poeh, Karl facilitated the return of a historic collection of 100 pieces of Tewa Pueblo pottery on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian. He is a youth mentor with the Boys & Girls Club in Pojoaque, helping coordinate and teach Native American hoop dancing. 

Commissioner Winoka Yepa, Vice Chair, (she/her/asdzaan), is Diné, originally from Shiprock, New Mexico, located on the Navajo Nation/Dinétah. Ms. Yepa brings a wealth of experience from the arts, museum, education, and Indigenous research fields. Ms. Yepa was formerly the Senior Manager of Museum Education at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, where she re-established and developed the museum’s education program and curated the museum’s first series of virtual residencies, virtual exhibitions, and first mobile application. She is currently a Data and Research Associate with Native Americans in Philanthropy and is a doctoral candidate in Education at the University of New Mexico. Ms. Yepa also serves as an advisory board member for Imagining America, a Humanities Advisor for gallupARTS, and an Education and Community Programming Advisor for Tse’Nato’.  

Commissioner Heidi Brandow (Diné & Kānaka Maoli) is a versatile artist whose work prioritizes the inclusion of Indigenous people and perspectives in creating ethical and sustainable forms of creative engagement and artistic expression. Alongside co-founding the Harvard Indigenous Design Collective, which champions design by and for Indigenous communities as an integral component of design fields' history, theory, and practice, Heidi currently serves as a Master Artist Mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts' Master of Fine Arts - Studio Arts Program. In previous roles, she was an Artist Liaison and Guest Curator at the Coe Center for Art. She served as a Tribal Liaison at Local Contexts, assisting Indigenous communities in reclaiming authority of their material culture and archives. Currently, Heidi is the Associate Director of Communications at First Peoples Fund, where she continues to uplift and promote the work and stories of Indigenous artists and culture bearers to a national audience. Brandow completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, studied industrial design at Istanbul Technical University, and received a Master of Design Studies from Harvard University. 

Commissioner Erin De Rosa is a painter, muralist, and project manager with over 20 years of experience in the creative fields, the last 8 in New Mexico. She has collaborated on large-scale public art projects, including with Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, where she worked in partnership with schools, behavioral health centers, and prisons on community engagement workshops to design and paint murals up to 5,000 square feet. In her current role as SITE SANTA FE’s Grants Manager, she collaborates with the development team to raise funds for the museum's exhibitions, education programs, and operations. De Rosa's work in the grantmaking field began at the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, where she managed a statewide regranting partnership and annually distributed $400,000 to 200+ local artists and organizations. Invigorated with the behind-the-scenes knowledge of equipping artists with money for their work, she has since generated funding for a variety of multidisciplinary projects, including the City of Albuquerque’s Public Art Program, MurosABQ, and the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute’s A Living Archive of Urban Indians. De Rosa received her BFA from the University of Georgia and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. You can find more about her work on colorfinds.com. 

Commissioner Hernan Gomez Chavez was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1991, where he presently resides and works. From 2009 to 2014, he studied at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. In 2013, he studied abroad in the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague. He pursued an MFA in sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Hernan’s artistic practice makes use of common motifs such as billboards, fences, and power lines to speak about the relation between power and place. Born to Mexican immigrants in the United States, his work aims to shine a light on his experience as a first-generation American living in the southwest. Living in the New Mexican desert and his proximity to the US-Mexico border informs the aesthetic devices he uses in his work. Images such as fences and walls demonstrate his lived experience in a highly segregated city and connect with larger discussions around national borders, both real and imagined. Coming from a blue-collar background, his work deconstructs old notions of the “American Dream.” By considering his place as intermediary between Mexican and American identities, he wants his work to speak to a broad audience. Although primarily focused on the creation of sculptural objects, he has also been involved in grassroots campaigns and organizing, feeding into a social practice that goes out into the streets in order to create dialogue around home, belonging, and displacement. 

Commissioner Karina Hean is an artist and arts educator living and working in Santa Fe, NM since 2010. Her artwork is grounded in drawing from nature and amalgamates responses to landscape, which aim to transmit the power and impact of place. Hean is the Visual Arts Chair at New Mexico School for the Arts (since 2008) and has taught drawing, printmaking, design, painting, and art theory courses at the University of Montana, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, and Fort Lewis College among other colleges and non-profit art centers.  She earned a BA from St. John’s College, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Drawing from Studio Arts Center International (Florence, Italy), and an MFA in Studio Art from New Mexico State University.  Karina Hean frequently exhibits in non-profit, educational, museum, and gallery settings, including the New Mexico Museum of Art, Zane Bennett Contemporary, Gallery Shoal Creek, Gerald and Stanlee Rubin Center for the Visual Arts (UTEP), the Springville Museum, and the University of Wyoming. She is grateful for the generous support of artist-in-residence studio opportunities, including Vital Spaces, the Ballinglen Foundation for the Arts Ireland American Artist Fellowship, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Vermont Studio Centers, Jentel Foundation, Wildacres, Ora Lerman Trust, I-Park and many more that have allowed her time to explore new terrain, work, and community. 

Commissioner Marcia Mikulak is a concert pianist with a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Master of Fine Art in music performance from Mills College in Oakland, California. Dr. Mikulak received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of New Mexico. She created and directed Santa Fe Research, an organization dedicated to the investigation of learning and potential in children, examining ways in which children diagnosed with 'learning disabilities' could reach their own unique potentials. Her pioneering fieldwork in Minas Gerais, Brazil, working with street children, incorporated experimental musical instruments, improvisational techniques, theater, and storytelling. She has been a Brazil country specialist with Amnesty International since 2007 and is currently a Brazil consultant for Amnesty International. Dr. Mikulak has several publications, and her most recent is "Childhood Unmasked: The Agency of Brazil's Street and Working Children," published in 2015 with Cognella Academic Publishing. She is currently Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of North Dakota's Department of Anthropology.  

Commissioner Robyne Robinson Commissioner Robyne Robinson is the Principal Consultant for fiveXfive Public Art, a firm that brands a strong business identity with the community through the arts. The former Director of Arts @ MSP, Robyne, developed arts and culture programming at MSP International Airport, generating over 5 million dollars for the Minnesota arts community through commissions, exhibitions, and programming at the nation’s 16th largest airport. Her work at MSP has received praise from transportation writers and national media, including The New York Times. Robyne is well-known as an Emmy-winning news broadcaster in the Twin Cities and the first African American prime-time anchor in Minnesota. During that time, she also produced and hosted the first nightly arts and entertainment segment in a major newscast – The Buzz – which resulted in international press coverage and one of the first interviews and lengthy relationships with Prince. Robyne is the creative mind behind ROX Jewelry Designs, sold throughout the US, Greece, and London. Her work is on display at the Lewis Museum of African American Art in Baltimore, fine art galleries in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and has been featured in US and UK magazines. Robyne has received numerous honors, including being selected as a 2010 candidate for Lt. Governor, a Hubert Humphrey fellow at the University of Minnesota, and the critically praised curator and owner of Flatland Gallery (2000-2003). She rounds out her list of awards with her recent induction into Minnesota’s Broadcasting Hall of Fame–another milestone as the first African American honoree. 

Commissioner Mayrah Udvardi (AIA, NCARB, LEED AP) is an architect, educator, and Design Director with MASS Design Group. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to living ecosystems, environmental justice, and architecture's role in equitably redefining territory worldwide. Since 2018, Mayrah has led and contributed to over 45 projects across the region in support of creative nonprofits, Tribal, and rural communities. Prior to MASS, she worked with Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative on building design and technical capacity in Indian Country, with Urban- Think Tank on community-led shack upgrading in South Africa, with Global Citizens for Sustainable Development on migrant housing in India, and with Enterprise Community Partners on documenting best practices in affordable housing. Mayrah holds a Master of Architecture with Honors from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Environmental Studies with Honors from Wellesley College, and is the recipient of Kinne, Watson, Schiff, Albright, Noble Foundation, and Aspen Ideas Festival Fellowships and AirWG and ZK/U Artist Residencies. She has taught at Kent CAED, Barnard College, and the Santa Fe Art Institute, and is the author of "On Fragile Architecture: Exploring Causes of Indigenous Housing Insecurity" and "Bangalore: Urban Development and Environmental Justice." Mayrah is fluent in English, Deutsch, Español, हिंदी, and اردو.