Graduate Teaching Assistant Ryan Frates is enrolled in the MFA in Visual Arts program and teaches the Basic Design course in the undergraduate art program. Frates received his BFA from Northern Michigan University in
Marquette, Michigan.

Frates’ goal as an artist is to create paintings that communicate ideas about the human experiences we all share. Currently, Frates is creating a series of paintings investigating the effect of humankind’s spiritual beliefs both past and present. Frates’ work, Anomalous Perspective Unrelenting Melancholy, is a figure study that attempts to convey the subject’s inner feelings through body language.

Anomalous Perspective Unrelenting Melancholy. 2006. Oil on canvas. 48” x 36”. *

Detail: Anomalous Perspective Unrelenting Melancholy. *