Alumni Spotlight: Ramona Bronkar Bannayan '86
The Alumni Spotlight is a place to hear from the School of the Arts alumni community about their journeys as artists and creators.
Ramona Bronkar Bannayan has been with The Museum of Modern Art since 1990, and was named Senior Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Collections in 2011. She oversees the administration of the entire roster of temporary exhibitions, gallery rotations, performance, film, and collection shows, supervising an annual program of approximately 50 on-site presentations. In addition, she oversees the Museum's outgoing loan program and touring exhibition program, developing collaborations with other museums on jointly organized exhibitions at venues worldwide.
From 2005 to 2008, Ms. Bannayan served as a Project Leader with Matters in Media Art, a collaborative project intended to develop and publish guidelines for the care of time-based media artworks (e.g., video, film, audio, and software-based installations).
Ms. Bannayan has a BFA (1983) from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and an MFA (1986) in Visual Arts from Columbia University, where she graduated with honors. Since graduation, Ms. Bannayan has maintained her studio practice. Ramona works with a variety of materials including pastels, conte, watercolor, gesso and charcoal to create small square format landscapes. Her work has been included in exhibitions with Wolf Kahn, Lois Dodd, Emily Nelligan and Eric Aho among others. One of her images was even selected for interpretation by poet Mark Doty.
Ms. Bannayan has been a member of ArtTable and the American Alliance of Museums, and currently serves as a member of the Dean's Council, School of the Arts as well as on the Columbia University Alumni Trustee Nominating Committee representing the School of the Arts.
Was there a specific faculty member or peer who especially inspired you while at the School of the Arts? If so, who and how?
Jane Wilson was my first year adviser and I was very inspired by her approach. She was a fellow mid-westerner who had an intense respect and awareness of the physicality of nature. Without compromise, while working in an urban setting she managed to maintain that elemental grounding in her practice and thus expanded my own sense of the experiential.
What advice would you give to recent graduates?
To remain open to change and see possibilities in a variety of experiences, even if they do not appear directly analogous to your masterplan.
How did you meet your significant other? Since this is Valentine's Day....
I was very fortunate when I was a student in the School of the Arts to meet my husband, John. He was a student in the School of Engineering, but we lived in the same graduate dorm, Johnson Hall. Mutual friends thought we would be a perfect couple and set up a double date. The rest is history as they say.