Since 1980, the Dallas Museum of Art has awarded more $540 thousand to young artists living and working in Texas, and some surrounding states. This year, ten artists have received grants from three funds, one didicated to young artists from 15 to 25 years old, another to artists under 30, and a third to fund travel for professional artists. The University of North Texas is well-represented among this year’s recipients, including Desiree Espada, who was a D Magazine photo intern last year. Travel grants will go to too Austin-based artists:
Erin Curtis is an Austin-based artist whose work explores the relationship between decorative practices and cultural identities.
Mike Osborne is an Austin-based artist who examines the intersection of technology, urbanism, and the landscape.
Here’s the full release:
Dallas Museum of Art Presents Its 2012 Awards to Artists
—With 10 New Recipients, the Combined Awards Programs Have Given More Than 245 Artists over $540,000 Since 1980—
DALLAS, May 11, 2012 — The Dallas Museum of Art is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2012 Awards to Artists and travel grants. This year, ten artists received awards in one of three categories: the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund, the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund, and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant. The DeGolyer and Kimbrough funds were established in 1980 to recognize exceptional talent and potential in young visual artists who show a commitment to continuing their artistic endeavors. The DeGolyer Fund is awarded to artists between 15 and 25 years of age who reside in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado, while the Kimbrough Fund is open to residents of Texas under the age of 30. Since their founding, the two funds have awarded over $482,000 to artists.
Recipients of the 2012 DeGolyer, Kimbrough, and Dozier Travel awards will discuss their work during the Awards to Artists talk on Thursday, May 24, at 6:30 p.m. A reception with the artists will follow the discussion in C3 Theater.
In 1990 the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant was created to honor the memory of Dallas artists Otis and Velma Dozier, who strongly believed in the enriching influence of travel on an artist’s work. The grant aims to recognize exceptional talent in professional artists who wish to expand their artistic horizons through domestic or foreign travel and is awarded to professional artists at least 30 years of age who reside in Texas. Since the fund’s inception, the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant has awarded over $141,000.
The four 2012 Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award recipients:
Rusty Chapman’s innovative stop-motion videos explore issues concerning the consumption of beauty and perfection. By removing objects from their original context, she creates works that question the status and functionality of the objects. With the DeGolyer Award funds, Chapman will build a tabletop city out of meat and other food products and photograph the “city” to create a virtual Google-Earth style interactive map. Chapman received her B.F.A. in Photography from the University of North Texas in 2011. Currently, she is an independent artist in Denton.
Oscar Mejia is a B.F.A. candidate at Southern Methodist University. His current body of work derives from his desire to work on large surfaces at minimal expense. The DeGolyer Award funds will enable Mejia to create a series of site-specific performance paintings. By working with found objects and painting en plein air, Mejia’s new project will raise questions regarding the commodification of the art object and the traditional studio practice.
Brandon Nichols uses photography to challenge our perception of consumer culture. By photographing shopping mall signage and digitally isolating the advertisements, Nichols demystifies the cultural meanings of these monolithic, contemporary totem poles. A graduate of the University of North Texas with a B.F.A. in Photography, Nichols will use the DeGolyer Award funds to purchase equipment in order to expand his work to large-format photography.
Jake Theriot is a B.F.A. candidate in Studio Art at Southern Methodist University. Theriot’s color-field paintings involve a gradual buildup of transparent layers of color. With the funds awarded, Theriot will purchase supplies that will allow him to develop his work further by creating a series of paintings that increasingly delve into issues of scale and viewership.
The four 2012 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award recipients:
Katherine Colin is an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Dallas. Colin’s dynamic paintings on canvas fuse a loose painting technique with mathematical systems, thereby juxtaposing the rational and the irrational. With the Kimbrough Award funds, Colin will embark on her post-graduate body of work, Chromograph, in which she will build upon her unique painting process by introducing new material supports for her work.
Desiree Espada received her B.F.A. in Photography from the University of North Texas in 2010. Her conceptual practice centers on issues of female identity and anthropological means of collecting. With the help of the Kimbrough Award funds, Kerry will participate in a four-day summer workshop at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Through her experiences at the workshop, Espada hopes to expand on her ongoing projects, as well as engage in dialogue with other young contemporary artists across the globe.
TJ Hunt is an installation artist who currently resides in Marfa, Texas. Hunt’s recent work reinterprets and regenders work by 20th-century male artists. With the assistance of the Kimbrough Award, Hunt will begin a series of roadside sculptures inspired by Land and Minimal Art of the 1960s and 1970s. This new work will raise questions concerning the context of public sculpture and how a work can respond to the contemporary landscape. Hunt earned her B.A. in Art History and B.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010.
Benjamin Terry is an M.F.A. candidate in Drawing and Painting at the University of North Texas, and he received his B.F.A. from the university in 2010. Terry plans to expand on his current figurative acrylic and graphite paintings by creating life-sized figurative sculptures. With the funds provided by the Kimbrough Award, Terry will purchase materials for his forthcoming M.F.A. thesis exhibition in 2013.
The two 2012 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant recipients:
Erin Curtis is an Austin-based artist whose work explores the relationship between decorative practices and cultural identities. With the Dozier Travel Grant, Curtis will travel throughout Guatemala, specifically Tikal, Quetzaltenango, Antigua, and Guatemala City, in order to photograph and experience the vibrant textile traditions, as well as the ancient and contemporary architecture. Curtis has exhibited at galleries throughout Texas, including Conduit Gallery, Dallas; Champion Contemporary, Austin; and Lawndale Art Center, Houston. Curtis earned her M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.F.A. from Williams College.
Mike Osborne is an Austin-based artist who examines the intersection of technology, urbanism, and the landscape. With the Dozier Travel Grant, Osborne will travel to the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon to conduct research for a photo/video project that will address how the mythologized Amazonian landscape collides with the forces of modernity. For this project, he will visit the setting of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Fordlandia, and Manaus. Osborne received his M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006 and his B.A. from Stanford University in 2000.
Awards to Artists grants have been awarded to more than 245 recipients, many of whom have gone on to successful careers within North Texas and across the country. Over the years, the DMA has acquired works from many of the artists who have received awards from the DeGolyer, Kimbrough, and Dozier funds. DeGolyer artists include Jeff Elrod, Misty Keasler, and Robyn O’Neil. Kimbrough artists include David Bates, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Lawrence Lee, Melissa Miller, Robert Pruitt, Michael Miller, Erick Swenson, and Kelli Connell. Dozier artists include Helen Altman, Annette Lawrence, Scott Barber, Joseph Havel, Katrina Moorhead, Ludwig Schwarz, and John Pomara.
Image: Mike Osborne, from the Underground, Stuttgard series. 2009. (via)
