Features

The Five: Edel Rodriguez, Sarah Sze, Craig Gillespie, and More SVA Artists in the Press

From the cover of ‘Time’ to the prime-time buzz of the Super Bowl, SVA artists continue to shape the visual and cultural landscape of 2026.

February 11, 2026by Rodrigo Perez
A person sitting backward on a red chair, holding a red high heel to her ear, laughing. Wears a blue shirt and black stockings, with gray hair and red lipstick.A person sitting backward on a red chair, holding a red high heel to her ear, laughing. Wears a blue shirt and black stockings, with gray hair and red lipstick.

Maayan Zilberman (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) featured on the cover of Edible Brooklyn.

Maayan Zilberman (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) featured on the cover of Edible Brooklyn.

Credit: Edible Brooklyn
Credit: Edible Brooklyn

In this week’s edition of The Five, SVA community members are making headlines across art and culture, from a major magazine cover story to a high-profile gallery exhibition and a prime-time pop-culture moment, with features in The Guardian, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Time.


1. BFA Illustration faculty member Edel Rodriguez illustrated Time’s February 23 cover story, “After the Ayatollah,” a series of reflections by five leading Iranian writers on the state of their country. Rodriguez’s cover art features a clerical figure whose robe is composed of the faces of protesters, millions of whom have taken to Iran’s streets to call for sweeping governmental reforms.


2. Maayan Zilberman (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) was the subject of a recent cover story for Edible Manhattan. The article covers Zilberman’s journey from art student to the founder of Sweet Saba, her custom candy company. Zilberman treats sugar as a sculptural medium, creating “edible poetry” that ranges from sugar-cast lipsticks to crystal-like installations. Across it all, her sculptor’s attention to form and surface comes through in every glossy curve and crystalline edge.

'The Expert' feat. Adrien Brody: TurboTax 2026 Super Bowl Commercial

Directed by Craig Gillespie (BFA 1989 Media Arts).

3. Filmmaker Craig Gillespie (BFA 1989 Media Arts) had a massive Super Bowl Sunday this past weekend. Not only did he direct the TurboTax commercial featuring a “drama-hungry” Adrien Brody (featured in USA Today), but the first trailer for his upcoming movie, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, also debuted during the game (via Deadline Hollywood). It was a neat double-header that underscored Gillespie’s success with both high-concept advertising and studio-scale spectacle.


4. Sarah Sze (MFA 1997 Fine Arts) has a new solo exhibition, “Feel Free,” at Gagosian Beverly Hills. In a feature for The Guardian, Sze discusses the “teetering” nature of her work and how it reflects our media-saturated world. “Feel Free” was also covered by T: The New York Times Style Magazine, in an item that also looks ahead to the debut this fall of a new site-specific work by Sze at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

A person lies on a textured surface, wearing a dark jacket and pants over a light-colored bralette, with arms resting above their head.

Kristen Stewart, photographed for The New York Times by Devin Oktar Yalkin (BFA 2010 Photography and Video).

5. Photographer Devin Oktar Yalkin (BFA 2010 Photography and Video) brought his signature high-contrast, atmospheric style to The New York Times Magazine’s recent interview of Kristen Stewart. Yalkin’s portraits and video of the actress and filmmaker accompany a Q&A focused on her long-awaited directorial debut, The Chronology of Water (2025).