Meet our artistic director

    Roslynn Renee West (also known as Renee) is the CEO and Founder of Aliyah School of Art.  She founded the school in 2016.   

   She resides in Maryland where she is a wife, mother, licensed minister and leader within her community.  

   Renee is a modern-day Renaissance woman and has worked professionally across many different genres of art.  As a youth, she was well known for her gift in the visual arts to which she was later accepted to the University of the Arts, located in Philadelphia, PA.  In college, Renee turned her attention to the performing arts where she studied dance and theater graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

   After graduation Renee began teaching in public schools to supplement her income as a performing artist.  It was there that she discovered she had an innate passion for teaching.   

   Her work within the public schools opened the door for many opportunities in the Multiply Disabled classrooms.  These experiences would later fuel Renee to found Aliyah School of Art where she wanted to provide an artistic safe haven for the deaf, blind, autistic, and their families by providing adaptive classrooms, curricula, and resources.

   Initially, she proposed naming the school “Aliyah School of Art & Therapy,” but later decided on dropping the term “therapy” so that the school would become more inclusive to students from all walks of life.

   In her lifetime, Renee has worked professionally as a visual artist, in various roles within theater, as a professional vocalist and as a company/freelance dancer. Her experiences have taught her the power art has to transform one's life holistically.  Through her work, she hopes that her students will have the same powerful, life changing experience that she has.