Dallas Museum of Art Announces Awards for Artists

The Dallas Museum of Art has announced its annual awards to artists, which offer grants for travel and special projects to nine individuals. Some familiar names as of late: Edward Sentina, whose work was featured in the Neiman Marcus windows installation, will use the grant to work on a 24-hour performance piece for the McKinney Avenue Contemporary. Travel grants will go to Kevin Todora, who will travel to the 2011 Venice Biennale, and sometimes FrontRow contributor Joshua Goode, who will travel to Africa and Europe to explore a variety of cultural and religious sites.

Here’s the full release:

Dallas Museum of Art Presents Its 2011 Awards to Artists

—With 9 New Recipients, the Combined Awards Programs Have Given

More Than 235 Artists over $520,000 Since 1980—

Dallas, TX, May 24, 2011 — The Dallas Museum of Art is pleased to announce its 2011 Awards to Artists. This year, nine artists received one of three awards. The Museum’s annual awards were established in 1980 by the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund to recognize exceptional talent and potential in young visual artists who show a commitment to continuing their artistic endeavors. The Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund is awarded to artists between 15 and 25 years of age who reside in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado, while the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund is open to residents of Texas under the age of 30. The two funds have awarded over $465,000 to artists since their founding.

The DMA also announces the 2011 travel grants. 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 seeks 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 development, the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant has given over $135,000.

The four 2011 Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award recipients:

Lindsey Allgood is a candidate for an M.F.A. in Studio Art at the University of Oklahoma, and she received a B.A. in Journalism from the University in 2009. As a native Oklahoman, Lindsey aims to bring performance art, her chosen medium, to that region. She will use the award funds to travel to the Summerwork Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin and to Boston, where she will study with performance artist Faith Johnson and perform at a gallery.

Diedrick Brackens views himself as a hybrid of an artist and anthropologist, and as such he dedicates a bulk of his practice to research and documentation. His current body of work explores African American culture, particularly handmade objects about the home. After receiving his B.F.A. at the University of North Texas this year, Diedrick will use the award funds to travel to New York’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to conduct research on black life in the Americas.

Kasumi Chow uses photography to capture women’s perceptions of their surroundings. Her photographs show women frozen in suspended animation in otherwise ordinary, everyday scenes. A graduate of the University of North Texas with a B.F.A. in Photography, Kasumi will use the DeGolyer Award to purchase a large-format camera and additional equipment so that she can continue creating her photographs.

Sarah Zapata aims to preserve the traditional art of weaving and to explore how conventional techniques can be used to create contemporary works of art. Recently, Sarah used a loom to weave threads consisting of strips of old telephone book pages, investigating the creative potential of two seemingly obsolete and antiquated objects. With the funds, Sarah will purchase a loom, which will allow her to continue her practice and share the skills that she has learned. She graduated in May 2011 with a B.F.A. in Fibers from the University of North Texas.

The three 2011 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award recipients:

Xxavier Edward Carter uses language to explore human attraction and repulsion, which he describes as the “magnetism of humanity.” He will use the Kimbrough Award to produce a new series of mixed media works based around language and abstraction. More specifically, the fund will go toward the purchase of materials to document his creative process while the series is in production.

Kerry Pacillio received her B.F.A. in Sculpture from Texas Christian University in 2010. With the help of the Kimbrough award funds, Kerry will create a music video for the Kinks’ 1987 song “Property” (for which the band itself never made a video) and will portray each band member. With the video, Pacillio intends to encourage viewers to explore issues of property, longing, and memory triggered by material objects left behind after the end of a relationship.

Edward Setina is a Dallas-based installation artist. With the assistance of the funds awarded to him, Ted will continue with a body of work he began two years ago as a performance piece that was presented as part of a group show at Dallas’s McKinney Avenue Contemporary. He will create a twenty-four-hour performance that will consist of an eight-foot illuminated Plexiglas cube in which he will reside for the duration of the performance. This body of work is an extension of his academic training in painting, which was Ted’s concentration at the University of North Texas.

The two 2011 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant recipients:

Joshua Goode combines painting and installation to explore the origins of spirituality. With the Dozier Travel Grant, Joshua will travel across Africa and Europe to visit centers of mythology, ritual, and religion, such as temples, cathedrals, and tombs, and will follow the migration path of early man from Africa to Europe. His planned stops include Ethiopia, Romania, southwestern France, and northeastern Spain. Joshua has exhibited at galleries throughout Texas, including Guerilla Arts, Dallas; Co Lab, Austin; and Art Storm, Houston. Joshua earned his M.F.A. from Boston University and his B.F.A. from Southern Methodist University.

Kevin Todora is a Dallas-based artist who questions the photographic object. In 2008 he traveled to New York City and visited many museums and galleries, and was influenced by the exhibition Unmonumental at the New Museum, where he saw photographs pinned to surfaces, draped over objects, and used as bases for sculptures. Drawing from this experience, Kevin began to cut and paint onto photographs. With the Dozier Travel Grant, he will attend the 2011 Venice Biennale, one of the largest international gatherings of contemporary art, to explore other innovative exhibitions and installations. He received his M.F.A. from Southern Methodist University in 2009 and his B.A. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2005.