Art Encounters Teaching Staff - Updated teachers for 2010 coming soon!
Dena Lester
Dena Lester established Art Encounters in 1998. A graduate in Fine Arts (Honours) from RMIT, she felt that there was a definite lack of good private art schools that taught formal skill and processes while enabling people to look into their creative expression. Dena believes that anybody who is committed to learning can find their voice as an artist and has successfully seen many of the school's students accepted into the best Tertiary Art Colleges in Melbourne (including all 2008 Fine Art Folio Students who applied for Art School).
Amelie Scalercio
Amelie is a graduate of Fine Arts (Honours) from Monash University and also holds a Bachelor of Education from Melbourne University. Amelie is the main teacher in the children's programs. She has been working at Art Encounters for five years and has a clear understanding of what is required in teaching children effectively. Amelie is committed and devoted to her students and is highly popular with children returning to her classes year after year.
Tony Senese
Tony Senese is a graduate of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from RMIT. Tony is a highly energetic teacher who works in both the children's and adult programs. He is the multiple recipient of many art prizes and is in constant demand for private commissions in both painting and sculpture.
Rebecca Harris
Rebecca Harris is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (Fine Arts, Painting) and the University of Fine Arts (Vienna, Austria). An accomplished drawer and painter, Rebecca's artistic practice is very contemporary and includes drawing, painting, film and music. She is a member of an international artists collective and exhibits in galleries around the world.
Anita Lester
Anita Lester is currently entering her third year of a degree in Multimedia and Animation at RMIT University. Anita is highly gifted in the areas of drawing, painting, mixed media, animation and cartooning.
Elizabeth Blanchet
Elizabeth Blanchet is a graduate of the National Art School in Sydney (Fine Arts, Painting) with further studies in drawing techniques, landscape painting, and an advanced painting course with Sydney artist, Michelle Hiscock, at Grosvenor Studios in Potts Point. She developed her artistic study with a residency in France in 2006-7 and is currently a practising and exhibiting artist in Melbourne.
Natasha Bieniek
Born in Melbourne 1984, Natasha Bieniek has been painting for ten years. Bieniek began her formal artistic training at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002 where she began to concentrate on figurative painting.
