BOPA Announces the 2023 Sondheim Art Prize Semifinalists
Press Release: March 16
The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) proudly announces the semifinalists for the 18th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize. This year’s panel of accomplished jurors — Kelly Baum, Devin Morris, and Ingrid Schaffner — have selected 14 visual artists and visual artist collaborators for the semifinal round. The 2023 Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize semifinalists are:
MEET THE SEMIFINALISTS
Abigail Lucien is a Haitian American interdisciplinary artist. Working in sculpture, literature, and time- based media, Lucien’s practice addresses themes of (be)longing, futurity, myth, and place by considering our relationship to inherited colonial structures and systems of belief/care.
Aliana Grace Bailey is an interdisciplinary fiber artist, designer, and socially engaged art practitioner. Born and raised in Washington D.C., Bailey is a passionate advocate for radical self-love, wellness, and healing. Her work embraces artmaking as a vehicle for growth, building intimacy, honoring loved ones, and creating inner peace through weaving vibrant colors, narratives, and environments.
Amanda Burnham makes drawings of all kinds: artist books, comics, intimate observational drawings, dimensional collages, and large, site-specific installations which feel somewhere between a comic book and a stage set. Since graduating from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in 2007, Burnham has been a professor of art at Towson University.
Andersen Woof is a Chinese American painter who currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Originally trained in landscape architecture at Rhode Island School of Design, Andersen constantly looks for ambiguous narratives that reflect the complexities of humanity through the lens of his own queer and immigrant life.
David Page is an artist who tries to explain intersecting notions around threat, risk, power imbalances, punishment, and everyday brutality. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Page earned a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the Cape Tecnikon in 1986 and an MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, jewelry designer Lauren Schott, and Hank the dog.
Hope & Faith (Eleisha Faith and Tonisha Hope McCorkle) hold BFAs from New York University in Studio Art, with minors in Social & Cultural Analysis and Psychology, respectively. These twin sisters — known collectively as Hope and Faith — utilize storytelling and collage to conflate the ideas of reconstruction and resilience within the Black experience. They actively channel collective consciousness within their practice to birth a new understanding of experience, one that is affirming, uplifting, and powerful.
Elliot Doughtie works in drawing, sculpture, and installation, with a desire to form intimate relationships between common objects and the awkwardness of having a body. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Doughtie has a BA from Tulane University and an MFA from Mount Royal School of Art at MICA.
Giulia Livi is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting and installation. Her immersive rooms employ hyper-cohesive color and abstract forms to work out ideas of multi-functional art objects and curated domesticity. Livi is currently the Associate Director of C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore’s longest continuously operating contemporary art space.
Jenny Reed is an assemblage sculptor whose work is predominantly composed of ceramics, fibers, and other craft-based materials. Through her abstract representational works, Reed aims to inspire viewers to envision new ways of perceiving and making sense of past events and everyday relations.
Katherine Mann creates large scale paintings and paper installations that examine mythology, identity, and landscape. The daughter of an American man and a Taiwanese woman, Mann’s work reflects the collision of Eastern and Western influences in her life. Having double majored in both Art and Human Development, Mann is continually inspired by the vast, complex recesses of our bodies.
Kelli Williams is an animator and visual artist who uses stop-motion animation, photography, augmented reality, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. An alumna of Morgan State University where she majored in Fine Art, Williams also has an MFA in Design from Columbus College of Art.
Kyrae Dawaun maintains a practice centering on the human dependence on inorganic matter and nonhuman existence and explores these geological transactions as they implicate human relationships. His approach to his work is influenced by his avid studies, speculation, and experience around architecture, hospitality, and the fluid and fickle nature of language.
Nekisha Durrett is a mixed-media artist who is invested in foregrounding issues of Black life while creating a space where fantasy, imagination, and history converge. Durrett creates both large-scale and intimate installations that aim to make the ordinary enchanting, while summoning subject matter that is often underrepresented or overlooked in our day-to-day lives.
Rae Red encourages laughter in the face of darkness by translating everyday realities into playful performances. Their work exposes the magic and wonder within daily functions, exploring subjects that are universal — like blood pumping through veins — while illuminating the small deaths that reoccur continually around us. Red is also an art educator, tarot reader, and yoga teacher.