Noah Stephens
2019 Kresge Artist Fellows, pictured left to right: Front row: Kikko Paradela, Cherise Morris, Nandi Comer, Tyanna Buie, Kristen Gallerneaux, Madelyn Porter; Second row: Anita Bates, Tylonn J. Sawyer, Mariam Ezzat, Alise Alousi; Third row: Tom Stoye, Rashaun Rucker, Jack Cheng, Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Cybelle Codish, Bill McGraw, Diana J. Nucera
Kresge Arts in Detroit has named 18 Kresge Artist Fellows and two Gilda Award recipients. The Detroit-area artists will share a total amount of $460,000 in grants and awards.
Kresge president Rip Rapson said in a press release that the crop of new fellows and awardees is “poised to lift spirits, open hearts, stir our thinking, and challenge our complacency.”
Kresge is also presenting an exhibition entitled Parallel Visions to celebrate 10 years of supporting artists in Detroit, which will feature around 20 Kresge Artist Fellows from the past decade. The exhibition will include visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, and film disciplines.
“A decade ago we recognized Detroit’s arts community as one of its bedrock strengths,” Rapson said in a press release. “We were convinced that heightening the visibility and advancing the careers of artists themselves would bring cascading benefits for the community of artists and the community at large — socially, culturally, economically.”
Nine Kresge Artist fellowships in visual arts and nine fellowships in literary arts were awarded. Each Kresge Artist Fellow will receive $25,000, as well as one year of professional support, including a professional development retreat at Creative Capital, an artist-service organization in New York. Additionally, the Kresge Artist Fellows will be featured in a Kresge Arts in Detroit’s film series showcasing the 180 Kresge Artist Fellows in the past 10 years.
One Gilda Award in visual arts and another in literary arts were also announced. The Gilda Award honors the late artist Gilda Snowden, an artist and educator, as well as a 2009 Kresge Artist Fellow. Gilda awardees are granted $5,000 in support of their work.
“As I near the end of my tenure at CCS, I take pride in the College for Creative Studies’ role in supporting the Kresge Foundation’s belief that individual artists matter to the vitality of a community,” CCS president Richard L. Rogers said in a press release. Rogers will retire on June 30 after 25 years.
The list of winners are below:
Literary Arts Fellows
Alise Alousi, Poetry
Jack Cheng, Fiction
Nandi Comer, Poetry
Kristen Gallerneaux, Interdisciplinary Work
Joan Kee, Arts Criticism
Bill McGraw, Creative Non-Fiction
Cherise Morris, Creative Non-Fiction
Diana J. Nucera, Zines
Madelyn Porter, Creative Non-Fiction
Visual Arts Fellows
Anita Bates, Painting
Tyanna Buie, Printmaking
Cybelle Codish, Photography
Mariam Ezzat, Sculpture
Kikko Paradela, Printmaking
Rashaun Rucker, Drawing
Tylonn J. Sawyer, Painting
Tom Stoye, Photography
Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, Photography
Gilda Award
Aiko Fukuchi, Fiction
Gilda Award
Noura Ballout, Photography
The awardees were selected from a pool of 850 applications, and judged by panels of both local and national artists and art professionals. Awardees were selected based on several criteria, including the potential for them to enhance and impact metro Detroit communities. The awards and fellowships are funded by the Kresge Foundation and facilitated by the Kresge Arts in Detroit office of the College for Creative Studies.
Parallel Visions is open to the public from July 12 through Aug. 24 at the Wasserman Projects gallery in Detroit’s Eastern Market.
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