MAXIMA STAFF, BOARD OF DIRECTORS & ADVISORY BOARD

MAXIMA Strives to create meaningful environments where people feel valued, are recognized as individuals and are given opportunities for their gifts to impact the organization and the lives of others. MAXIMA is strutted under the management of an Executive Director acting with a Board of Directors and Advisory Board and Staff. The Board of Directors meets with founder and executive director, Yossi Govrin, on a bi-annual basis to keep the mission and vision of MAXIMA fresh, innovative and strategically growing in quality and sustainability in the future.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Krista Augius

Krista Augius is MAXIMA Board of Director’s Chair and acts in a supportive role as a point person to organize the Board of Directors, monitor and strengthen programs and services, and monitor follow through of the mission and vision of MAXIMA.

Krista Augius is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist showing in national and international art exhibitions as well as international museum galleries. She is involved in visual, audio and the healing arts and devotes her artistic talents to supporting environmental art and various philanthropic causes such as Save the Elephants, the Chiari Project, A Window Between Worlds, Habitat for Humanity, Unicef and Breakthrough. She is a painter, author, singer/songwriter and recording artist as well as a designer. Ms Augius is a Santa Monica resident and was a Santa Monica Art Studios tenant artist for eight years and has benefitted greatly from Yossi Govrin’s artist mentorship. Yossi Govrin and Krista Augius have combined their talents to curate art exhibitions, host international art shows, exhibit art installations for several international exhibitions and collaborate on entertainment based projects like sets for Iron Man III and Fast and Furious 7. Her current art studio is in Malibu, California where she is currently working on her music album.

Ms Augius comes from a long line of familial artists such as Maironis, Paulius Augius, Danute Augiene and Filomena Lipciute. Her educational background is in science and she is also a Doctor of Physiotherapy and has successfully run several small businesses. She combines her art with meditation to enhance the healing process as well as to host artistic retreats for personal transformation and empowerment. Her doctoral work is currently involved in pursuing research in neuroscience that is reflected in her artwork and exploration of optical illusions and meditative states.

Berenika Boberska

Berenika Boberska serves on MAXIMA’s Board of Directors with a role to enhance the organization's public standing with her knowledge of contemporary art exhibitions and her affiliations with various international galleries and artist residencies, monitoring exhibition quality and progressing the vision for multidisciplinary art to promote cutting edge arts exhibitions with artistic relevance to our cultural times.

Berenika Boberska is a professor of Woodbury University of Architecture, curator of exhibitions and a contemporary artist based in Los Angeles and London. Berenika Boberska is an architect, installation artist and professor at Woodbury University School of Architecture, where she is the founding director of the Hinterlands Institute, a spatial research laboratory which aims to engage with contemporary rural conditions, as well as populations, which have largely been overlooked by the practice of architecture.

After working as a design architect at Gehry Partners for seven years, on the Spruce Tower in Manhattan and the Princeton Science Library amongst other projects, she started her own practice in Los Angeles in 2007. Feral Office, a visionary praxis engaged in architecture, prototypes and experiments, has won an international competition for the Architecture & Design Festival Pavilion in Novosibirsk, Russia, and was nominated for the Iakov Chernikhov Prize in 2010, for most innovative concepts of architecture. Berenika describes her practice as being akin to a laboratory. She is currently collaborating with a scientist on the concept of Solar Baroque – creating prototypes and structures for a more spatial, aesthetic and experiential photovoltaic energy production. Berenika’s design projects and installations have been exhibited and published worldwide, including at the Second Moscow Architecture Biennale, the Graphics Triennale in Jyväskylä, Finland and the University of Wyoming Art Museum. Her publications include Fallow City(For Detroit), Visionary Praxisand Cautionary Tales, and her short stories and drawings were included in the anthology - Storytelling Architecture.

Peter Culley

PeterCulley is on the Board of Directors of MAXIMA and brings his experience of working on cultural projects to progress MAXIMA's mission, vision and programs with effective planning and cross cultural innovation.

Peter is an architect and he collaborates extensively with arts organizations and helps to create art centers nationally and internationally with planning and architecture. He is the creative leader and founder of Spatial Affairs Bureau,an award-winning architecture, design and landscape studio based in Los Angeles, Richmond VA and London.

Central to his work ethos is being open across disciplines and scales, and to rich collaborations. He comes from a background in cultural projects where landscape has sat hand in hand with architecture and believes firmly that one informs the other. Peterhas been ‘Professor of Practice’ in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Woodbury University’s School of Architecture, thesis instructor at USC’s Masters of Landscape Program, Masters instructor at University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, and is a member of the UK’s RIBA Visiting Board for Architecture School Accreditation. His current projects include a 40 000 sq ft arts center in Memphis Tennessee; a 2 mile-long ‘bridgepark’ in Richmond, VA; ongoing remodeling of the TBWA\Chiat\Day offices in Playa Vista; a studio, gallery and residence for London-based artist Rana Begum, and various private homes in Southern California. He is currently developing a new installation, International Midnight Garden, with avant-garde London cellist Oliver Coates.

ADVISORY BOARD

Farnaz Harouni- Educator, Fashion Designer, Fine Artist, Interior Designer

Farnaz Harouni is a teacher in design at the Otis College of Art and Design (Otis) for over 14 years.. She won the Thimble Award from Otis for her couture craftsmanship for fashion design for which she has also won numerous local and national design awards and being featured at Saks Fith Avenue and Neiman Marcus. She is also a multi-discipline artist who expresses her creative energy through many channels as she is also a fine artist working with mixed media to bronze sculpture.  She is also an active volunteer for the Children's Action Network and serves on the topic curation committee for Visionary Women. 

Julie Weiss- Artist, Costume Designer, Teacher

Julie Weiss is a costume designer in the field of theatre, film and television and has served on the faculty of UCLA and Stanford Universities. Weiss has received two Emmy Awards, has been nominated for seven Emmy's, two Academy Awards, and one Tony.  She received the Career Achievement Award from the Costume Designers Guild. She recently received The Helen Hayes Award for the Washington D. C. Production of the Los Angeles Latino Theater Company’sproduction of Destiny of Desire. Credits also include the Broadway Production of Elephant Manand the more recent production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Film and television credits include Steel Magnolias, American Beauty, Frida, Blades of Glory, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Twelve Monkeys, The Ring, Honeymoon in Vegas, The Freshman, and the soon to released My Dinner with Herve and Greyhound.

Emily Ashenfelter- Fundraising Manager, Website & Social Media Manager

Ms Ashenfelter advocates for the MAXIMA by researching and submitting grant proposals as well as other fundraising activities to support MAXIMA’s artists and programs. Ms Ashenfelter promotes fundraising efforts and is a liason with donors and patrons of MAXIMA. Ms Ashenfelter ensures optimal artist and event representation on website and social media platforms.

Ms Ashenfelter is an arts advocate and media professional with extensive experience working with non profit arts organizations. She received her bachelor’s degree in Media Production and Film from the University of Iowa and her master’s degree in Arts Leadership and Cultural Management from Colorado State University. Over the years, she fulfilled the roles of board member, technical director and festival co-director. Her experience includes researching and securing grant funding, organizing fundraisers, composing press releases, producing commercial spots, and arranging filmmaker interviews. Her experience in festival administration has left her with a solid understanding of arts management and the challenges and rewards of arts fundraising and sponsorship.

Breana Latty- Art advisor, Art Conservationist

 Breana Latty holds a Masters Degree in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in conjunction with Claremont Graduate University. She is currently working as an art advisor at Tappan Collective, an online based art gallery for emerging artists, in the sales department.  She also holds a dual Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Italian Studies from Smith College and pursued a career in art conservation and has significant experience in the cataloging, digitization, and inventory, and assessment of artworks in a museum setting at LACMA.

William Ransom- Artist, Professor at Claremont University, Los Angeles, CA 

William Ransom received an MFA in Sculpture from Claremont Graduate University in 2008 and a BA in Sculpture and Architecture from Bennington College in 2004. He has shown his work in numerous group exhibitions, including: Arena 1 Gallery, the Torrance Art Museum, Greene Exhibitions and Fellows of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Ogilvy and Mather in New York, Open End Gallery in Chicago, the Albany International Airport and at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota. He has had several solo exhibitions including at Chime and Co in Los Angeles, the Lenzner Family Gallery at Pitzer College and in 2015 Ransom had his second solo show at John Davis Gallery in Hudson, New York.

William Ransom was born and raised on a dairy farm in Strafford, Vermont and his work and life continue to be informed by his early material experiences and engagement with the cycles and rhythms of the natural world. He lives and works in Los Angeles.