PR For Artists was started because we recognize artists shouldn’t feel conflicted about creating work and what can be the challenging process of getting that work recognized.
Our founder, Aubrie Wienholt, started PR For Artists after watching her father struggle to create an art career for himself and seeing the toll that took on him professionally and personally.
With an extensive background in public relations and publicity, Wienholt decided to start her own agency and build a team from various creative fields in order to support individual artists with tailored campaign strategies that enable them to take their careers into their own hands.
Over the years our team has brought expertise from various backgrounds in editorial, marketing, the art world, and organizations like the following: Sotheby’s Institute of Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The University of San Francisco, Saatchi Gallery, The Victoria & Albert Museum, HuffPost, and elsewhere. Some have gone on to receive MFAs, get published, and teach at university.
Are you an artist ready to take your career to the next level? Let's start a conversation...
Aubrie Wienholt
CEO | Founder
Aubrie Wienholt is the Founder and CEO of PR for Artists and has been working in public relations, strategic communications, marketing, digital marketing, social media strategy, and event management professionally since 2009. She worked with an eclectic set of clientele, supporting myriad teams and campaigns, including those at Mora Communications and Rogers & Cowan, before founding her own agency. She establishes branding, pitching, and positioning strategies to support media outreach efforts. Utilizing traditional PR techniques in the context of artist career management, she has developed multi-tiered campaigns for various independent artists, galleries, and organizations. She has spearheaded campaigns for clients such as Brendan O’Connell, Gretchen Andrew, Russell Young, Barbara Cole, Stephen Wilson, Hunt Slonem, Julio Larraz, Yuge Zhou, John Peralta, and Joshua Haupt of Artsy Cannabis, and many more. In the last few years, she has created and extended services from strategic media relations to fine art gallery introduction, curated pop-up exhibitions, retail collaboration, social media campaign marketing, and digital curation and management.
Colter Ruland
Creative Director | Senior Account Executive
Colter Ruland is the Creative Director and Senior Account Executive of PR for Artists, and brings with him years-long experience studying and working in writing, publishing, and academia. He received a BA in English Literature from the University of Arizona, and an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. He also studied literature at Universität Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany. He has taught at a variety of levels, including as an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of San Francisco. His volunteer work includes roles such as Associate Fiction Editor and Features Editor for the online literary journal Switchback, manuscript reader for the nonprofit publisher FC2, Fiction Editor for The Rumpus, and contributing writer for the Poetry Center in Tucson, Arizona. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Contemporary Art Issue, Le Mile, ContentMode, Cosmonauts Avenue, Fiction Advocate, Territory, Goodnight Sweet Prince, The Thought Erotic, and elsewhere.
Agency Partner / Founder & CEO of Heroic
Matthew Dunnerstick fuses art, tech, finance, and marketing into one practice. After working in financial technology at American Funds, he spent the next 15 years building Heroic (formerly Stick Creations).
Known in the local Los Angeles art scene, his past projects have included early digital art (chronicled in Rhizome), a feature film (distributed by Hulu), a meme and satire publication, and collaborations with renowned artists. He has worked with hundreds of clients over the past 15 years, including Getty, LACMA, Disney, Pixar, Netflix, Hulu, Paramount, Universal, Warner Brothers, Marvel, MGM, Sony, BMW, Skechers, Puma, Red Bull, AB InBev, Dove, Nintendo and many others.
Creative Producer
Karen is a creative producer at Heroic. She was born in Colombia and brought up in the United States as part of an immigrant family looking for better opportunities. Karen earned her undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Cauca. During her academic journey, she and a team of colleagues launched a social startup related to organic product markets that won the Hult Prize Bogotá Regional Summit. As part of the social component in her line of study, Karen is invested in problem-solving, research, and digital development strategies.
Savannah Winans
Director of Artist and Gallery Relations
Savannah Winans is the Director of Artist and Gallery Relations of PR for Artists. She received a dual BA in Fine Art and English from the University of California Los Angeles. She has previously worked as a studio manager for a major international artist, a fabricator for a mid-career oil painter, and a teaching assistant for painting classes at UCLA. She has knowledge in many different aspects of the art world, stemming from an active engagement in the Los Angeles art scene, as well as from years of experience working with galleries and individual artists.
Freelancer Writer & Social Media Assistant
Originally from Sweden, Jonathan Bergström is a journalist and freelance copywriter now based in Los Angeles, where he relocated in 2020. He graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Södertörn University in Stockholm. With a strong passion for culture, Jonathan has written extensively on film, music, theater, literature, and art for various publications such as Le Mile Magazine, Whitehot Magazine, Contemporary Art Issue, and Dagens Nyheter, the largest daily newspaper in Sweden.
