Oakes is an independent animator, artist, and educator. His films utilize a variety of animation techniques- including digital hand-drawn, stop-motion plasticine, and computer-generated imagery.  He also creates and records the score and sound-design for most of his films.

His films have screened nationally and internationally in numerous film festivals including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Australia Independent Film Festival, the Montreal International Animation Film Festival, the Los Angeles Animation Festival, the Florida Animation Festival, the Toronto Short Film Festival, the Athens International Film Festival, the Riga International Short Film Festival and Rigas Ritmi Music Festival, Moviehouse/3rd Ward, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Screendance Shorts, the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, Cartoons on the Bay (Italy), I Castelli Animati (Italy),  Lajiribilla Film Festival (Cuba), Arizona State University Short Film Festival, Whistler Film Festival, University of Southern California First Look, LA Freewaves Digital Festival, International Student Film Art Festival, Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, American Film Institute/Sloan Summit, University of Southern California First Look, University of California Los Angeles Short-takes, and Etiuda Film Festival (Poland).

His animation, digital art, and prints have been exhibited at numerous museums, galleries and conferences including William Patterson University/Ben Shawn Center for the Visual Arts, the Montclair Art Museum, the Monmouth Museum, Gallery Aferro, the Kean University Dryfoos Gallery, the University Film and Video Assocation Conference, University of Southern California, Hunterdon Art Museum, the Society of Animation Studies conference, the PECO building (PA), Cornell University, PBS Reel Video Contest, the Museum of the Moving Image (online), and Artists Space (NYC).

Early in his career, Oakes worked for Fox Feature Animation and Blue Sky Studios on the films Ice Age and Robots.  He also designed characters for an animated Adult Swim pilot (Colonel Wallace).

He earned his BFA and teaching certification from Eastern Michigan University and his MFA is from the University of Southern California- School of Cinematic Arts. Prior to coming to Kean, he taught at Rhode Island School of Design in the department of Film Animation and Video. He is an associate professor in the School of Communication, Media, and Journalism at Kean University in Union, New Jersey.