ABOUT US

Gateway Atelier of Classical Art began in 2018 under the leadership of B. J. Parker and Ingrid Oertli as a place to pursue excellence in drawing and painting in the classical realist tradition. From the beginning GACA set out to offer a curricularly driven skill-based program for the region. In 2025, GACA became a tax exempt, not for profit, 501c3 and now offers a four-year certificate program aimed at helping individuals develop the facility needed to become working artists.

FACULTY AND STAFF

B.J. Parker, PhD, Founder and Artistic Director

B. J. Parker, b 1980, is a contemporary figurative painter based in Saint Louis, Missouri. Fascinated by myth and always practicing the visual language, he completed his PhD in ancient Near Eastern religion at Baylor University and trained in the visual arts with Patricia Watwood, Sadie Valeri, and at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art. In his work, B. J. amalgamates the approaches of the Renaissance and Baroque masters, ancient Near Eastern Mythology, and his lived experience of a post-postmodern context. Combining traditional practices dating back to the Renaissance with contemporary compositions, his work explores human relationships, the experience of the sublime, and forgotten stories through figurative creations in oil paint, charcoal, and graphite.

BJ’s Website BJ's Art Renewal Page BJ’s Instagram

Brei Cameron Harris

Brei Harris is a dedicated artist and educator with a deep passion for the human form. She earned her MFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2008, where she refined her skills in both traditional and contemporary figurative sculpture.

For over a decade, Brei served as a full-time instructor in the Foundations Department at the Academy of Art University. In her role, she designed and implemented a dynamic curriculum that emphasized the core principles of proportion, gesture, structure, value, and anatomy. Her teaching philosophy focuses on demystifying the complexity of the human figure, empowering students to build strong foundational skills, develop artistic confidence, and cultivate a consistent, disciplined practice.

Originally based in San Francisco, she made Saint Louis home during the pandemic, creating space to raise her family and continue her work.

Brei’s Instagram

Tori Cole

Tori Cole (b.1999) was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2015 she moved to Texas to pursue her art education full time and in the summer 2020 she moved to Brooklyn to attend Grand Central Atelier where she graduated the 4 year program. A passion for art history has led her to draw on a wide range of artists from Johannes Vermeer to Bertha Wegmann, and as far back as the artists of the Northern Renaissance. In recent years Tori has looked to her family’s long history of craftswomen for inspiration and guidance.

www.torililycole.com

Lukas Griffiths

Lukas Griffiths, b. TX 1999, is a contemporary realist painter currently working in eastern Pennsylvania, he graduated the 4 year program at the Grand Central Atelier in 2024 where he worked under mentors Edward Minoff, Jacob Collins, and Colleen Barry. And was a 2025 Hudson River Fellow. His primary influences derive from the Painters of the 19th century and the great American landscape.

Lukas’s Instagram

Board of Directors

1. Ingrid Oertli, Founder and Treasurer
2. Deborah Pontius
3. Carolyn Karasek Needles, Secretary
4. Jan Heck
5. Wryn Engelmeyer

To reach us, please contact B. J. Parker, PhD
at (314) 399 5118 or
bjparkerfineart@gmail.com
gacastudio.info@gmail.com