OUR ALUMNI
mark rakhmanov
Mark Rakhmanov is a UX Designer based in New York. He was born in Moscow, Russia and has always had an interest in design. This passion has led him to Parsons the New School, where he studied Architectural Design. He went on to work for some incredible studios including BIG - Bjarke Ingles Group, Rockwell Group and Lightshed Architecture.
Mark has participated in many Architecture Design competitions, many of which took first place in their respective categories. Some of these competitions include Solar Decathlon, +FARM, Architecture for Humanity and the international LIXIL Architecture competition.
His passion for the technological advancements has lead him to shift his design thinking into UX Design. He went on to study UX Design at NYU. With his Architectural and structural background, he is able to structure and guide a user through any platform, as well as confidently contributing to the strategy, concept, and design of any given project.
ILAN BELOKON
Ilan Belokon was Born in Brooklyn, NY in June of 2000. He was introduced to art from an early age and went on to attend High School at Fiorello H. LaGuardia. In pursuit of his design career Ilan is currently attending Parsons as a Junior Communication Design Major studying print and web design.
Maria Kofman
Hi, my name is Maria Kofman and I am currently an illustration major at the Fashion Institute of Technology. I have been a student of Leon's for over 10 years now. I initially came to his class in order to prepare for middle school art examinations. His exam preparation classes helped me to get into Bay Academy middle school, and LaGuardia Highschool. I knew I wanted to pursue a career as a visual artist pretty early on. It was the only thing I could imagine myself doing for the rest of my life. Looking back now, I am beyond happy with the career I have chosen. Even though I no longer take classes at Leon's studio, Leon and I have managed to keep in touch over the years. He has become a valuable friend, and source of inspiration for many of my projects. I don't think I would have made the same life choices without his help and guidance.
Alina Ananyeva
I took interest in art as a child and began to think about it seriously when I attended Leon’s classes. I began attending art classes when I was 10, and continued all the way through high school. During this time I not only learned many principles and techniques but began discovering personal artistic preferences and style. Repeating themes in my art presented themselves through a unified color palette as well as people and snakes. I was very focused on depicting realism and mastering techniques of blending colors in subtle ways, this made projects long and energy consuming, eventually leading me to overthink and fall out of love with my work. Moving on to college, I attended Baruch majoring in Finance to later realize I wanted something closer to art. This led me to transferring to FIT where I spent a year studying Communication Design. Taking design classes at FIT, I worked mostly in black and white while learning the arrangement of different elements when creating compositions. This experience helped me value intuitive art as opposed to expressive art. Because I spent this time creating abstract work, I began to better understand the energy that shapes and lines emit when placed together. Though I enjoyed my time in Communication Design a lot I felt I still wasn’t exactly where I needed to be. This is why I made the decision to switch to Fine Art. In the coming year I will be majoring in Fine Art at Hunter College. In the meantime I am taking classes at Student Art League where I further explore my style and technique. I returned to some preferences I had in middle school and high school and began modifying them. I am no longer focused on realism rather the use of color, form, and line in my paintings.