Faculty
Faculty at WSS are practicing artists with diverse educational backgrounds. They are dedicated to sharing their knowledge and experience and committed to furthering students’ pursuit of study in the visual arts. Instructors provide students with an arsenal of skills, while maintaining a sensitivity to each student’s individual artistic inclination.
COURTNEY APPLEQUIST
Courtney Applequist is an interdisciplinary artist based in Potomac, MD. Her work explores a range of media, with a focus on painting and drawing using architecture as a foundational framework and asserting a visualization of movement, time, and the debris as a consequence of it. With a deep interest in the use of portraiture as an examination of an individual and their context, she is exploring the possibilities that form offers, expanding ideas of identity and the relationship of materiality & scale.
Courtney holds a BFA from Baylor University and studied painting at the Washington Studio School. She has exhibited in various galleries locally, SXSW in Austin, TX, Delegation of the European Union, WashingtonDC, and is currently represented by AdahRose Gallery. Her work was highlighted in the Washington Post (June 2023) and she is a 2023 GLB Project Seed Grant recipient . Applequist is a co-founding member of the ICEbox Collective, a multimodal artist group whose work fosters critical thought and dialogue across cultural boundaries through a collaborative social & public art practice. Her work with ICEbox Collective received the AIR Grant from ArtsFairfax, Virginia, was published in ArtMargins MITPress, and exhibited at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, Transformer DC, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Washington DC and La Casa del Maquio in Mexico. To learn more about Courtney visit courtneyapplequist.com
REEM BASSOUS
Reem Bassous received her BA from The Lebanese American University and her MFA from The George Washington University. She started teaching drawing and painting in 2001 at The George Washington University, taught at the University of HawaiÊ»i at Manoa for 9 years, and at Leeward Community College at the University of HawaiÊ»i for 7 years. Bassous continues her journey in education as Artistic Director and Head of Faculty at the Washington Studio School, as of the fall of 2023. Bassous’ regional and national exhibitions include solo shows at the Honolulu Museum of Art, SBCAST Gallery in Santa Barbara, and the Washington Studio School Gallery, in Washington DC. Her work has been reviewed by various publications which include the Washington Post, Art Asia Pacific and Star Advertiser. Bassous’ work is in permanent collections which include the Honolulu Museum of Art and Shangri La Museum for Islamic Art, Culture and Design.
RACHAEL BOHLANDER
Rachael Bohlander lives and works in Washington, D.C. She is a mixed media artist with a focus on incorporating three-dimensionality into works formed through the combination of painterly gesture and geometric structures. Rachael received her MFA from the New York Studio School and studied at the Washington Studio School. Rachael teaches drawing, mixed media and constructed sculpture at the Washington Studio School and she has served as a guest instructor and teaching assistant at the New York Studio School. Rachael was an Artist in Residence at the New York Studio School’s post-graduate sculpture residency in DUMBO Brooklyn, New York. Her works have been included in solo and group shows in D.C., New York, Annapolis, Northern Virginia, and Bethesda, MD. You can learn more about Rachael Bohlander and her art practice at: RachaelBohlander.com