Fine Arts

Matt Buckner, MFA

Associate Professor

Matt Buckner’s early years were spent in his father’s sculpture studio in Oregon — where he learned woodworking, carving, and casting — as well as a stint in Italy where he worked for a furniture carver. In 1981, Buckner moved to New York, where he worked at a number of foundries and restoration companies as a mold maker, welder, metal finisher, turner, carver, and gilder. His notable projects include the restoration of carvings and patinas at the New York Public Library and the American Stock Exchange.

Before coming to DigiPen in 2012, Buckner taught life studies, sculpture, and design for 25 years. He has conducted workshops in Hong Kong, Peru, and France, and has renovated or constructed the sculpture areas of several teaching facilities, including the University of Oregon and the former Seattle Academy of Fine Art. At the behest of his students, he formed the Seattle Sculpture Atelier in 2008, a studio devoted to traditional methods for making sculptures, including figure studies and anatomy.

In 1995, Buckner became a two-time winner of the Gloria Medal, conferred by the National Sculpture Society for best body of work by a sculptor under the age of 35. His commissions included woodcarvings, bronzes, and works fabricated in a variety of materials. Locally, he has had solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum and Olympic College.

David Longo

Senior Lecturer

David Longo grew up on a dairy farm in Connecticut. At an early age, he had a passion for drawing and painting, coupled with a love of video games. When Donkey Kong hit the arcades in the early 1980s, he became enraptured by 8-bit graphics, leading to many drawings of pixelated characters on graph paper. It would be over a decade before his love of art and games would converge again. He went on to receive a BFA in illustration from Pratt Institute in New York City. Upon graduating, he worked as the studio manager at a graphic design firm in Manhattan while doing freelance illustration on the side.

As a gamer, Longo was acutely aware of the evolution of video games in the 1990s with the ever-increasing visual fidelity and sophistication of gameplay. In 1996, he began his 20-year adventure in game development, creating illustrations and characters for the third installment of Bungie Software’s Marathon series. In 1999, he made the trek out to Seattle to work at Monolith Productions as the lead 3D artist for the critically acclaimed No One Lives Forever. He moved into the art director role for No One Lives Forever 2, F.E.A.R., and Gotham City Impostors. In 2012, he co-founded Blackpowder Games with a small group of ex-Monolith employees, releasing their first game, Betrayer, in 18 months with just six-and-a-half employees. After a short stint at ArenaNet, Longo joined DigiPen full time to help up-and-coming students become tomorrow’s exceptional game artists.

Peter Moehrle

Senior Lecturer

At the age of 9, Peter Moehrle immigrated with his family from West Germany to Toronto, Canada, in 1966. He showed an interest in drawing and painting from an early age. But it wasn’t until high school that he knew he wanted to be an artist. After high school, Moehrle enrolled at the Ontario College of Art, where he studied fine art and graduated with honors.

While he was working at his first job at a picture framing shop, a customer who worked as a voice actor for animated films suggested he pursue a career in film and referred him to a friend. That friend turned out to be one of the three owners of Nelvana, the largest animation studio in Canada at the time.

Since 1980, Moehrle has made his living as a background painter, becoming supervisor of his department after three years of working in animation. In 1986, he became the supervisor of layouts as well. His job allowed him to work on various animation projects for television and film.

In 1995, Moehrle joined Disney Feature Animation in Florida as a senior background artist and worked on feature films like Mulan, Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, and others. Since Disney closed their studios in Florida, he has done development work for studios like Sony, Starz, IDT, Core (Canada), Hibbert Ralph (UK), and Miramax (UK).

Today, Moehrle teaches young future animation artists at DigiPen and maintains his skills by doing freelance work for the occasional studio in his spare time.

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Doug Parry, MFA

Associate Professor

Doug Parry received a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Washington in 1988. Between the years of 1988 and 1997, he enjoyed success as a young artist in Seattle, exhibiting at such places as the University of Washington, the Bellevue Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Center of Contemporary Art, the Linda Farris Gallery, and the Linda Cannon Gallery.

In 1997, Parry moved to Brooklyn, NY, and received an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in 2000. Since then, he has exhibited in Seattle, New York, Chicago, Vancouver, and Miami, and has been awarded grants from Pratt Institute, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Artists’ Trust of Seattle. Parry has also served as Resident Curator at the Historic Cedar Tavern Gallery (NY) and Bandoleone Restaurant (Seattle), and is the founder of V.A.G. (Visual Art Gallery) at its first location in Brooklyn, NY. Parry has taught Life Painting at Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY), the College of Saint Elizabeth (Morristown, NJ), and Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY). Locally, he has taught painting and drawing at Gage Academy of the Arts (Seattle), at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle), and at Kirkland Arts Center (Kirkland, WA).

Parry’s private and public collections include placements in homes and businesses in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, New York, and Rome. Parry is a sought-after portrait artist commissioned by noteworthy businesspersons, doctors, writers, actors, and musicians internationally. His work has been seen on television, in film, on album covers, t-shirts, murals, and posters since 1983. His work is represented by Art 101 in Brooklyn, NY, and by NeoImages Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA.

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