Lynnzos (Lynn Suyeko Mandziuk) is an interdisciplinary and multi medium artist, storyteller, and creative problem solver, as well as a full time professor of visual art at University of Colorado Denver and adjunct professor at RMCAD. She has spent the past 20 years working as a professional illustrator and designer.

She spent the bulk of her late 20s and early 30s living the rock climbing “road/van life”, while building a career in the outdoor industry remotely. After realizing she’d never be a professional climber, she settled with being a sponsored athlete (Mad Rock Climbing) with a client list of national brands, magazines, publishers and more under her belt.

Lynn is insatiably curious, and believes experience informs art and sees opportunity for growth and reward in challenge, be it on the wall, traveling the world, or creating new pieces of art. Her work has been shown in galleries across the US and abroad, in international, national and regional publications, she has won awards for her illustration, design, as well as academic work.

Currently she is trying to do more with community, teaching, and working on performance, printmaking, and sculpture. Her background in diverse and different disciplines is lending itself to help her find where the Venn diagram overlaps. Creativity is curious and knowledge based, and the more you know or try to understand, the more opportunity you can pull from. Lynn uses this idea to create multi-discipline adventures in art.

Lynn is a life long learner, jokingly referring to herself as the “undercover overachiever” and pursuing a second graduate degree in Social Sciences at University of Colorado Denver. As a musician, she is trying to experiment more with sound and performance as well. In her down time she does stand up and improv performance to balance out having to sound (mostly) intelligent all day long.

Put into her own words:

That moment when the impossible starts to feel possible? That’s what I live for. To me, art lives in the nuance between opposites. That’s where meaning is made.

MFA - BFA - MSS

(Some) Clients:

Team Promark and NFL, MLB, NCAA, NHL, NBA brands, Rock and Ice, Climbing Magazine, Ascent, AAC, Access Fund, EVO movement and fitness, EVO, Flashed Climbing, Butora, BCC, and more

Publications, Academic + Client Work:

April 2024          Cover of Denver Art Review Inquiry and Analysis (DARIA) Magazine, Spring

June 2023           Is Print Dead? How innovation will change illustration. SCADask cited my MFA thesis

January 2023      Gear Review, Active.com

April 2020          Rock and Ice Magazine, Recurring spot illustrations

April 2020          Climbing Magazine, Recurring spot illustrations

March 2014        Ascent Magazine, Recurring spot illustrations

December 2013   Thundercling.com, Recurring spot illustrations

January 2019      Nutrition for Climbers, Fixed Pin Publishing

January 2014      Pasand, Sexual Health in India, Design Egg

Accolades

January 2024 – IDA – Honorary Mention, International Design Awards

November 2022 – aired July 2023 Winner, I Survived Bear Grylls, Television Show

July 2023 Thesis “Is Print Dead? How innovation will change illustration.” Picked by SCADAsk top 10 out of 500 theses to be republished and cited by SCADAsk

June 2021 Nutrition for Climbers, GOLD medal for Design from the PUB West Book Design Awards

May 2018- present Sponsored Ambassador Rock Climber for Mad Rock Climbing

Residencies + Shows + Workshops + Public Speaking + Performance

·       November 2024 - Hidden Water Group Show, CU Experience Gallery, Denver

·  November 2024 - Illustration Conference Presentation, RMCAD

·       September 2024, Printmaking Workshop, Deep Space Drive-In, Denver

·       July 2024, Japan Fest 2024, Levitt Pavilion, Denver

·       March 2024, Mo-Print ArtGym Denver Printmaking Show, Art Gym Denver

·       March 2024, 528.0 Regional Juried Printmaking Exhibition, Arvada Arts Center

·       October 2023-January 2024, Cuauhtémoczin, actor, Play, MCA Theatre and People’s Building Aurora

·       November 2022 aired July 2023I Survived Bear Grylls, participant, TBS, reality show

·       October 2019 + September 2021, Chateau Orquevaux Artist in Residency, Orquevaux, FR

·       Denver 2019, Solo Art Show “Descendance”, Art Gym, August

·       July 2019, Summer Artist’s Market, Art Students League, Denver

·       July 2019, Arvada Arts and Ales, Denver

·       June 2019, Mural at Wilderness Exchange, Denver

·       December 2018, Bibelot Show, Kanon, Denver

·       July 2018, Summer Artist’s Market, Art Students League, Denver

·       October 2007, Art of War, Space Gallery, San Francisco,

·       June 2007, Group exhibition, Space Gallery, San Francisco

·       June 2007, Spring Show, Academy of Art, San Francisco

Courses Taught:

CU Denver

August 2022 – December 2022, Design for Web and Mobile

January 2023 – present, Digital Design Studio 2

January 2023 – present, Digital Design Studio 3

January 2023 – present, Design Thesis Research

August 2022 –  present, Intro to Digital Design

August 2022 –  December 2022, Intro to Image Making

June 2023 – present,  Lynx Comic Book Making Camp

August 2022 – present  Typography Studio

January 2023 – present, Typography 2

International College of Beijing

December 2024 – present, Fostering Creativity

May 2024 – present, Visual Culture

Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design

April 2017-present, 2D Design Elements + Principles

April 2017-present, Drawing 1

April 2017-present, Drawing Lab

April 2017-present, Experimental Typography

April 2017-present, Fundamentals of Illustration

April 2017-present, Illustration Marketing

April 2017-present, Illustration Media

April 2017-present, Illustrative Design Graduation Portfolio

April 2017-present, Illustrative Design Junior Portfolio Review

April 2017-present, Illustrative Design Sophomore Portfolio Review

April 2017-present, Landscape Painting

April 2017-present, Layout Design

April 2017-present, Life Drawing 1

April 2017-present, Life Drawing 2

April 2017-present, Life Painting 1

April 2017-present, Mastering the Pencil

April 2017-present, Observational Drawing

April 2017-present, Perspective

April 2017-present, Sign and Symbol

April 2017-present, Still Life Painting

April 2017-present, Typography

April 2017-present, Typography for Illustration

April 2017-present, User Prototyping

April 2017-present, Vector Illustration

April 2017-present, Visual Sequencing

Service: University

June 2024 BFA Design Thesis Reviewer

June 2024 Faculty Mediator for protestors

August 2023 Merit Reviewer

June 2023 Commencement Faculty Marshal

Service: Membership

January 2017-present, AIGA

April 2017-present, ASLD

January 2016-present, Art Gym Denver

August 2014-present, Graphic Artist’s Guild

August 2001-present, Society of Illustrators

Service: Community

September 2024 Free Art Workshop at DSDI

November 2024 Speaker Illustration Department, RMCAD

Languages

Reading Proficiency: French, Spanish

Speaking Proficiency: Intermediate French, Low Intermediate Spanish

Learning at Beginner Level: Chinese, Japanese