2019 South Arts state fellowships for visual arts awarded
Nine recipients vie for Southern Prize
[caption id="attachment_38996" align="alignright" width="250"]
Virginia Scotchie - Photo by Chris Horn[/caption]
South Arts, the nonprofit arts service organization advancing Southern vitality through the arts, has named nine visual artists to receive State Fellowship awards of $5,000 each.
These nine artists are now in consideration for the Southern Prize, which includes an additional $25,000 cash award and a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.
All nine state fellows will be featured in an exhibit at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia from March 21 – May 5, 2019. The winner of the Southern Prize and a $10,000 Finalist award will be announced at a ceremony celebrating the State Fellows on April 15 at 701 CCA.
The 2019 State Fellowship award recipients are:
- Jamey Grimes. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Sculpture.
- Amy Gross. Delray Beach, Florida. Sculpture.
- Bo Bartlett. Columbus, Georgia. Painting.
- Lori Larusso. Lexington, Kentucky. Painting.
- Stephanie Patton. Lafayette, Louisiana. Multidisciplinary.
- Rory Doyle. Cleveland, Mississippi. Photography.
- Andrew Hayes. Asheville, North Carolina. Sculpture.
- Virginia Scotchie. Columbia, South Carolina. Crafts.
- Andrew Scott Ross. Johnson City, Tennessee. Multidisciplinary.
Launched in 2017, the South Arts Southern Prize and State Fellowships celebrate and support the highest quality artistic work being created in the American South. Over 800 visual artists submitted work for consideration, and
a panel of jurors reviewed each anonymous application using the sole criterion of artistic excellence to recommend the nine State Fellows. A second panel of jurors is currently reviewing the State Fellows to select the Southern Prize awardee and the Finalist.
“Creativity is thriving throughout the South,” said Susie Surkamer, executive director of South Arts. “The 2019 State Fellows’ work has such varied subject matter as the African-American cowboy culture in the Mississippi Delta, the forms and forces of nature, and the impact of ‘perfect’ images of life and home inundating us through digital media. They each come from different backgrounds, viewpoints, and styles, yet each are masterful representations of their respective artform. We are very proud to support them as we work toward our mission of advancing Southern vitality through the arts, and helping working artists more able to survive and succeed while living in the South.”
This is the first year when the Fellows will be featured in a group exhibit. “One of our goals is to celebrate the excellence, innovation, value and power of the arts of the South,” continued Surkamer. “By curating a public exhibit of the State Fellows, we are able to share their dynamic work and highlight the breadth of style cultivated throughout our region.”
The State Fellowship juror panel included:
- Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, visiting assistant professor with Oklahoma State University;
- Katherine Jentleson, the Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art with the High Museum of Art;
- Radhika Subramaniam, associate professor with the Parsons School of Design;
- Ben Thompson, deputy director with the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville;
- and Joey Yates, curator with the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.
Visual artists living in South Arts’ nine-state region and producing crafts, drawing, experimental, painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, and multidisciplinary work were eligible to apply. The awards will be presented to the artists as unrestricted funds.
To view the 2019 State Fellows’ submissions and learn more about the competition, visit
www.southarts.org.
About Virginia Scotchie
“I am a ceramic artist and Area Head of Ceramics at the School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. I received my Bachelor of Art in Sociology and Religion from UNC-Chapel Hill in North Carolina and in 1985 completed my Master of Fine Arts at Alfred University in New York.
“My ceramic sculpture has been extensively exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, and has received numerous awards including the Sydney Meyer Fund International Ceramics Premiere Award from the Shepparton Museum in Victoria, Australia. I have lectured internationally on my creative research and have worked as an Artist in Residence in Tainan, Taiwan, Rome and Florence Italy, Sydney and Canberra Australia, Kecskemet Hungary, Fuping China, Vallauris France and Hertogenbosch Netherlands. My ceramic work resides in numerous public and private collections and reviews about my work appear in many prestigious ceramic publications.”
About South Arts
South Arts advance Southern vitality through the arts. The nonprofit regional arts organization was founded in 1975 to build on the South’s unique heritage and enhance the public value of the arts. South Arts’ work responds to the arts environment and cultural trends with a regional perspective. South Arts offers an annual portfolio of activities designed to support the success of artists and arts providers in the South, address the needs of Southern communities through impactful arts-based programs, and celebrate the excellence, innovation, value and power of the arts of the South. For more information, visit
www.southarts.org.
The program is open to individual visual artists living in the South Arts region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. South Arts is committed to practices and funding that create greater cultural equity, represent the diversity of our region, are inclusive of diverse voices and artistic expression, and are accessible to everyone.
First, a group of nine state fellows will be selected through a two-tiered selection process by a national jury. Then, a second national jury will select the Southern Prize winner and finalist. Each state fellow automatically receives $5,000. The finalist receives $10,000 and winner receives $25,000, and both of those receive a two week residency at The Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.
Jurors will make their selections based on artistic excellence that reflects and represents the diversity of the region. All nine artists selected as 2022 state fellows will also be featured in a touring exhibition opening next year at the Bo Bartlett Center for the Arts in Columbus, Georgia, and touring for up to 18 months (exact details are TBD).
This program is open only to visual artists and will expand to other disciplines in the future. The application deadline is January 10, 2022.
#SCartists who are recent state fellows include Fletcher Williams III (a finalist), Kristi Ryba, Kate Hooray Osmond, and Herb Parker from the Charleston area and Virginia Scotchie from Columbia.
