Charlotte Street Foundation has announced its 2016 slate of awards recipients. Each artist receives an unrestricted cash award of $10,000.
The five fellows this year include: visual artists Shawn Bitters, Rodolfo Marron III, and Madeline Gallucci, and generative performing artists J. Ashley Miller and Eddie Moore.
The awards process starts with an open call for applications from artists based in the five-county metro area. A jury of arts professionals narrowed the pool to 18 finalists, and then to five.
In September, an exhibition of the visual artists' work will be on display at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The performing artists are likely to present their work throughout the year.
The Charlotte Street Awards program launched nearly a decade ago, in 1997. To date, $630,000 has been distributed to 89 visual artists and $118,000 to 17 performing artists (the latter awards category started in 2008).
Visual Artist Award fellows:
Bitters grew up in Orem, Utah, and earned an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005. An associate professor in the visual arts department at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Bitters has displayed his paper sculptures and installations in solo shows from California to New York, as well as in Japan.
A 2012 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, Gallucci co-directs the project space, Front/Space. She's shown her drawings, paintings, and digital prints at Plug Projects, Paragraph Gallery, and Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City, as well as in galleries in Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. Gallucci also served as artist-in-residence at the Hotel Phillips from 2014 to 2015.
Marron was born in Los Angeles, California, but his family moved to Kansas City's Westside in the 1990s. He graduated from Paseo Academy of the Fine and Performing Arts in 2009. Marron's mixed-media illustrations have been described as modern folktales, combining personal stories with natural materials such as poke berries and walnuts. Most recently his work has been on display at Garcia Squared Contemporary and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.
Generative Performing Artist fellows:
A composer, producer and musician, Miller incorporates technology into his "genre-bending trans-modern" work. He's collaborated with a range of musicians and bands, such as SSION. One of his latest projects includes raising funds for a recording studio at Gillis, a center for at-risk children.
Listen to his work here:
A native of Houston, Texas, Moore moved to Kansas City to earn a master's in jazz studies at UMKC's Conservatory of Music and Dance. A pianist, composer and educator, his band Eddie Moore and the Outer Circle combines soul, R & B, and hip hop with jazz. Their second album, Live In Kansas City, was listed as a top jazz release of 2015. Listen to his work here.
Laura Spencer is an arts reporter at KCUR 89.3. You can reach her on Twitter, @lauraspencer.
