Our Staff, Partners & Sponsors
Executive Director
CATRECE Mariano (She/Her) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CO-FOUNDER
Catrece Ann Tipon is a Filipino-American nurse, photographer, and choreographer based in Baltimore.
Born in St. Louis and raised in Maryland, Catrece earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and minored in music at Catholic University of America. As her passion for photography grew, she decided to pursue it alongside her nursing career. Catrece values the diverse communities of people that surround her whether she’s taking care of them in the hospital, capturing their personalities through portraits, or teaching them how to use their bodies to tell a story.
As a photographer, she aims to inspire self-confidence and to help clients tap into their beauty, strength, and power as an individual. She loves that portrait photography allows her to meet and learn from people across different backgrounds, which opens her mind to the many facets and complexities of being human.
Catrece has 16 years of formal dance training and is a Grade V Pre-Professional level dancer in the Cecchetti ballet technique. Her education also included Tap, Jazz, Modern, Contemporary, and Hip-Hop. She specializes in Modern and Contemporary dance, which she taught and choreographed for five years during and after college.
Catrece believes that giving artists a platform is imperative for them to tell how they are feeling through their talents.
Our Current Staff
B.V. Martin (She/her)
Administrative Specialist / Graphic Designer
B.V. Martin is the daughter of a first generation Mexican mother and a first generation half Filipino, half Swedish father. While her life was very Americanized, growing up she still greatly enjoyed the influences of her multi-cultural family. As an adult she strives to learn more about her many different roots.
From a very young age, B.V.’s parents strongly encouraged her love for the arts. At the age of fifteen, she started taking college level art classes. B.V. continued to study art at her local community college before transferring to Millersville University in Pennsylvania with a primary focus in drawing and painting. Her many interests also included ceramics, printmaking, and metalsmithing.
In her final semester, B.V. completed her senior thesis. Her BFA show explored the stories behind victims and survivors of the Holocaust. The series developed further meaning after B.V. discovered her Mexican ancestors were Sephardic Jews. B.V. would go on to graduate with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in the fall of 2014. In 2020, she returned to school to study Graphic Design at New York’s Institute of Art and Design.
Kenneth Tsui (He/Him)
Financial Officer
Ken is a public speaker, an active CPA, and a board member for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore. Ken joins the APAC advisory board to bolster organizational strategy and enhance our development and financial practices. He began his career in public accounting at PWC and moved to Stanley Black & Decker where he held various leadership roles in finance. While there, Ken led the corporation’s first Asian employee resource group from inception growing it to 3 locations across the US. He is excited to get more involved in the Baltimore Art scene based on his blossoming love of impressionist paintings and further support organizations focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Ken has an MBA from the University of Hartford and dual degrees from The College of New Jersey in Accountancy and Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
