A passion for Art and the firm conviction that arts education principles and practices do contribute to resolve the social and cultural challenges our world faces today, have driven all my career choices and professional decisions.
My journey began when, after finishing an MFA at Yale, I settled in Spain to develop a career as a painter. However, a growing interest in Art Education inspired me to begin teaching, initially decorative arts workshops for minority groups. The awareness that innovation is fundamental for Education led me into designing and implementing original academic structures and curricula, such as the first Art MBA in Spain (2005) where I still teach today or building from scratch as Vice Dean and currently as Arts Department Director, a new University Arts Faculty in Madrid which offered in 2010, the first BA´s in the Spanish University system in Arts Management, Scenic Arts, Interior Design and Fine Arts & Technology.
My main concern as an Academic Leader is to keep promoting relentlessly the teaching of Art as a fundamental tool to help create a better and more just society.
What I bring with enthusiasm to Nebrija Arts and Humanities Institute is more than 18 years of experience leading Art Programs and helping students finding their own voice through perseverance, hard work and, of course, reminding them of the importance of what the great Art of the Past can teach us!
I look forward, along with Nebrija Arts and Humanities Institute Artists, Scholars and professionals to welcome you in Madrid for a unique Artistic and lifelong learning experience.
Cecilia Allott is the coordinator of Nebrija Arts and Humanities Institute and the Advanced Program in Appraisal of Works of Art and Antiques at Nebrija University.
She has a MA in Art Market and Management of related companies (Nebrija University) and a BA in History of Art (Complutense University).
Before joining Nebrija, she has had extensive administrative and management experience both in cultural entities and companies in the Spanish art market. Independent researcher on Art and Technology.
Esther Yance is Associate Professor of "Fashion Film" and “Fashion Styling” in the BA Fashion Design Program at Nebrija University. She has a PhD on Film and Fashion Studies (Universidad Complutense de Madrid-London College of Fashion) and specializes in film costumes and the representation of future in XXth century cinema.
Previously, Esther Yance has lectured at some of the most prestigious international fashion schools: Parsons Paris, Istituto Marangoni Paris, IESEG School of Management Paris, Istituto Europeo di Design Madrid and Universidad Complutense.
Recently, she has contributed to the biggest academic publication on Costume Design the Encyclopedia of Film and TV Costume Design edited by Hollywood costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis (Bloomsbury).
Earlier, she developed a career as stylist for commercial works, designing the costumes of multiple commercial projects, from global TV ads to Vevo videoclips. Her approach helped her to professionally collaborate with film directors, celebrities, and international publicity agencies alike.
Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Granada, he currently lives and works in Madrid.
He has carried out artistic residencies in places such as the Spanish Academy in Rome (2012/13) or Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2010), and has been awarded photography prizes, such as the Grünenthal (2011), "Purificación García" (2007) or ABC (2003); as well as the "Generations to artistic projects" (2009) or the "National Prize for the Best Edited Art Book" in 2014.
His solo exhibitions include "Quemar ramón" (2020) at the Juan Silió Gallery in Madrid; "Sin atajos" at the University of Jaén; "La noche en balde" (2017) at the Juan Silió Gallery in Santander; Looking Was Serious Work but also a Kind of Intoxication at the DA2 in Salamanca (2017); The Random Series -berliner trato, romananzo & madrileño trip- at Swiss Photography Festival of Biel/Bienne (2016), Les Rencontres de las Photographie de Arles and at Centro de Arte de Alcobendas (2015), The Random Series -berliner trato- (2010) at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin.
José Luis Guijarro is the Director of the Master’s Dregree in Art Market and Management of Related Companies at Nebrija University.
Jose holds a PhD in Art History from Complutense University of Madrid, an MA in Art Business from the Sotheby's Institute of Art and a Master's Degree in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture from Autónoma University of Madrid.
Prior to joining Nebrija University Jose has worked for the Department of Contemporary Art at Christie's and as Curatorial Director and Valuations at MutualArt in London. He is the founder of Programa Taide and 57 non-profit Organizations aimed at supporting contemporary art and artists. Between 1999 and 2009, José Luis worked as Financial Controller at Grupo Ferrovial.
Leyson Ponce (Venezuelan/Spanish) is a Ph.D. (Summa Cum Laude) in Philosophy of arts at the Salamanca University, Spain (2018). Master's Degree in Philosophy of Art (Salamanca University). Master's Degree in Management and Cultural Policies (University of Girona, Spain). Degree in Performing Arts (Central University of Venezuela) and Higher Studies in Choreographic Composition at the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany (1992/1995).
Choreographer, dancer, and professor. He founded his dance company called Dramo in the mid-nineties in Caracas, a well-known company in the country and abroad.
He is currently dancer and choreographer invited by Carmen Werner´s company “Provisional Danza” in Madrid since 2014, where Ponce has investigated and developed a language of movement wherein, he juxtaposes intuition, impulse and instinct with energy, risk in order to find new concepts and languages of the body in the context that these movements are involved.
In the course of the years Ponce has defined an aesthetic line about performativity that he calls Wisdom of the movement, which he applies in his methodology. He has recently taught at the University of Leiria in Portugal through the International Mobility Programs ERASMUS+ and Munde, 2022.
In the same way artistically and alongside Werner, their choreography “The Embrace” released in the Festival Surge Madrid, has been successfully submitted in Gijon, Miami, USA, Valencia, Zaragoza, Sevilla, Cantabria, Vigo, Mexico City, among other presentations.
Ponce is professor at Nebrija University. He has participated in congresses and seminars in Venezuela, Spain, USA, Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica and has articles published in specialized magazines in Venezuela, Spain, Brazil and Argentina.
In 2007 she graduated in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she received a collaboration scholarship in the Department of Sculpture in 2006 and an Erasmus scholarship at the Scuola di Disegno del Politecnico di Milano (2005/06).
Between 2008 and 2015, she is assistant to the painter Hernán Cortés Moreno, a period in which she begins to delve into the genre of portraiture. Today her pictorial work is essentially figurative and explores identity through femininity, relationships and the body.
She has painted portraits for collections such as the Royal Spanish Academy (Dario Villanueva), the National Distance University UNED (Alejandro Tiana), the Council of State (Francisco Rubio Llorente), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (Angel Gabilondo), the Bar Association of Madrid (Antonio Hernandez-Gil), The Royal Academy of Jurisprudence (Luís Jiménez de Azúa, Landelino Lavilla and Luís Díez-Picazo), as well as numerous private commissions, including those painted for Judge Pilar Llop Cuenca, current president of the Senate, and the lawyer Rafael Mateu de Ros.
She has participated in group exhibitions such as Transmisión del Proceso Creativo (Centro Arts Santa Mònica. Barcelona, 2013), La New Gallery (Madrid, 2014), the Bienal de Artes Plásticas Ciudad de Albacete (2016) or Artistas Descrito (C.C. San Clemente.Toledo, 2018).
Individually he has exhibited in El taller de Pepe Herrera in 2013, in La Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación in 2019 and in the Bufa Chamber of Toledo in 2021.
Alexandra Semenova studied Fine Arts at the V.I Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts in Moscow. In collaboration with leading Russian publishers, Alexandra has become an author of illustrations for many literary works, including those of Shakespeare and O. Henry. Since 2019 Alexandra has been living in Madrid. After finishing the Master in Illustration at IADE and the Master in Contemporary Culture at the Instituto Universitario de Investigación Ortega y Gasset, she is currently working on her PhD Thesis at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and participates in academic conferences.
In Spain Alexandra continues to work in the field of illustration, in particular, she collaborated with The Objective, making illustrations for the column Escritores al borde de un ataque de nervios (Writers on the verge of a nervous breakdown) and with Revista Popper. At the end of 2020, Alexandra's project was among the three finalists of the APIM (Professional Association of Illustrators of Madrid) contest in the comic category. In collaboration with Per Poc, a theater company from Barcelona, Alexandra designed a series of characters and sets for the project 'Puss in Boots ́ by Charles Perrault, which embodied her passion for baroque aesthetics. This project was also among the finalists for the APIM 2021 award, this time in the category Applied Illustration.
Julia is founder and owner of JB & Associate AC Lab focused on conservation and restoration of contemporary and modern art. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts with a specialty in painting conservation, a D.E.A. and a Ph.D. from the Complutense University of Madrid. She has worked as a conservator for more than two decades, leading a trans-disciplinary team of professionals where she employs scientific techniques, multi-spectral diagnosis, advanced technology, nano materials and state-of-the-art instrumentation, respecting the identity of the work, attending to the artist and under international standards of minimal intervention.
Professor of the Advanced Program of Art and Antiques Appraisal at Nebrija University, she is since 2018 head of conservation of the SOLO Collection, creating the first Lab in Spain of conservation of Time-Based Media Art in 2020.She is co-founder of fortheloveofart.org together with the SIT Spain group, and manages from preventive conservation important private art collections and contemporary galleries. Julia and her team are the preferred curators of the art fairs ARCO, UVNT Art Fair, among other international fairs such as Frieze, Art Basel, collaborating as an associate for art companies in Europe, England and the United States in different projects.
She has an internship at MNCARS and she is the first promotion of the Master of appraisal, valuation and expertise by the School of Art & Antiques of Madrid. She studied in Florence, London and Paris. She has worked for Patrimonio Nacional in the Royal Palace, Ministry of Culture, Community of Madrid, Community of Castilla y León and in the prestigious studio of Hamish Dewars LTD in London. He leads conservation projects for religious orders, churches and cathedrals, and especially for the Society of Jesus.
Regular speaker at art forums, he participates in seminars, congresses and international meetings. In 2018 she launched the podcast Por Amor al Arte, is an art ambassador for Cris Cancer Spain and is proud to be a Canarian and bring the Cibeles to Chicago and the Spanish adhesive "La gacha" to Yale University in 2019.
She is a Member of AIC, IIC, ICOM-CC, ARA, ApoyONLINE and for the last two terms she has been on the board of the Spanish Group of IIC.
Claudia Rodriguez-Ponga Linares is currently an Associate Professor at IE University and SUR Escuela (UC3M) and a guest professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya of Catalonia (UOC).
She is currently curating a site specific solo project with Eva Lootz which will take place in 2024 (Sala Alcalá 31). Her curatorial practice includes other solo exhibitions with Valeria Maculan (OTR Espacio de Arte), Sara Ramo (Sala Alcalá 31) and Debora Bolsoni (Athena Contemporanea, Drawing Lab Paris), as well as group exhibitions and projects of a collaborative nature such as “Nudo-Nido”, curated alongside Isabella Lenzi and selected by a jury of experts for the Sala de Arte Joven de la Comunidad de Madrid.
She organizes or gets involved in workshops and experiences with the artists she collaborates with, with whom she shares a common interest for the shaping of communal experience, such as “Cuatro tardes tamo”, held alongside Eva Lootz in the Museo Reina Sofía, or her intervention in “La escuela perturbable II” in the context of the exhibition on Francesc Tosquelles (also in Museo Reina Sofia). Her recent academic publications include essays such as “Algo piensa”, in Revista Concreta, “Cuentos caníbales”, in a book edited by the Institute of Postnatural Studies, “El tarot de Eva”, in Accesos Magazine (UCM), “Sobre el arte como trabajo afectivo-reproductivo”, in Arte ConTexto Magazine, “¿Creen ustedes en lo que existe?”, in Re-visiones Magazine (UCM), or “Crítica en estado de rêverie”, in Revista de Occidente.
She has also published texts in catalogues of artists such as Sonia Navarro Peralta or Paulo Nimer Pjotta. She is author of the book Tentempié, a compilation of essays on painters and painting and her ”Brief Treatise on Art and Magic” is available in Portuguese here and partially available in Spanish here.
