BmoreArt

$40,000 Mary Sawyers Imboden Awardee: Bruce Willen – Interdisciplinary Arts

Bruce Willen is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, musician, and creator of the Ghost Rivers public art project, which has brought widespread attention to the ecological consequences and forgotten histories of buried urban streams. He is founder of Public Mechanics, a Baltimore-based studio working in public and cultural spaces. His work with studio Post Typography has appeared on covers of Time Magazine, The New York Times, and in dozens of publications, including a Post Typography monograph. Bruce has composed new scores for silent films, performed on multiple continents, and released dozens of recordings with the groups Peals and Double Dagger.

$10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Awardees: Evan Nicole Bell – Music

Evan Nicole Bell is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. Her videos have garnered over 13 million views across platforms, including a feature on the front page of NPR Music. Blending blues, rock, folk, pop, and Americana, Bell plays every instrument on her recordings except drums. Highlighted by renowned guitarist Joe Bonamassa and lauded by Americana icon Todd Snider as “Prince meets Lightnin’ Hopkins,” Bell’s debut album, Shades of Blue (2025), peaked at No. 1 on Roots Music Report’s Singer/Songwriter Chart and landed on the iTunes Top 100, Americana Music Association Top Albums, and the Big Blues Chart. Bell holds a B.A. from Duke University and a graduate certificate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Chung-Wei Huang – Film/Video

Chung-Wei Huang is a Taiwan-born, Baltimore-based writer-director whose narrative and dance-for-camera films move between grounded realism and lyrical imagery. Her work often centers on overlooked stories, tracing characters as they navigate questions of identity, displacement, and fragile bonds—using movement and the texture of place to uncover quiet strength and longing.

Monica Ikegwu – Visual Arts

Monica Ikegwu (b.1998, Baltimore, MD) is a figurative painter recognized for her captivating and unconventional use of color, texture, and composition. Ikegwu earned her BFA in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA in painting at the New York Academy of Art. She is represented by Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, MD and Band of Vices, Los Angeles, CA. Through her portraiture paintings, she aims to give people a platform to display themselves in the way that they truly are without any limitations.

Lola B. Pierson – Performing Arts

Lola B. Pierson is a playwright, writer, director, and designer who lives and works in Baltimore City, and generally needs a lot of help and reassurance. She is the co-founding Artistic Director of The Acme Corporation, a theatre company that works to develop presence, experiment with form, center vulnerability, and make good jokes. The heart of her work is healing through metaphor. She’s interested in dismantling broken systems by creating better ones. Lola’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The San Francisco Chronicle, and she has a cat named Swamp Thing.

Lysley Tenorio – Literary Arts

Lysley Tenorio is the author of Monstress and The Son of Good Fortune. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, and Zoetrope: All-Story, and he has received a Whiting Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in the Philippines, he is an Associate Professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

To read the full artists’ biographies or learn more about their work, please visit www.bakerartist.org/2025awardees.

About the Baker Artist Portfolios
The Baker Artist Portfolios were created to support artists and promote Greater Baltimore as a strong creative community. The online portfolios are open to artists working in all disciplines who live and work in Baltimore City and its five surrounding counties. The portfolios expose area artists’ work to regional, national, and international audiences. The site has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of art lovers, critics, gallery owners, academics, and leaders in creative business in nearly every country around the globe.

About the Baker Artist Awards
Artists who create a Baker Artist Portfolio are automatically eligible for one of six Baker Artist Awards, which include significant monetary prizes, exhibition and showcase opportunities. Each year, selected artists share a total of $90,000 in prize money. Prizes are awarded to artists who demonstrate a mastery of craft, depth of artistic exploration, and unique vision.

About Mary Sawyers Baker Prize
Mary Sawyers Baker was one of Baltimore’s early philanthropists, studied voice as a young girl in Paris and embraced the arts throughout her life. She established the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund in 1964 to honor her husband, a well-known Baltimore civic leader.

About Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize
Designed to be transformational to the life and career of one exemplary artist, the Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize was launched in 2016, when it was awarded to Joyce J. Scott. Mary Sawyers Imboden was the beloved niece of Mary Sawyers Baker and throughout her childhood traveled extensively with her aunt throughout Europe. Mary Sawyers Baker established The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund in 1964 and upon her death in 1976, was succeeded by Mary S. Imboden on its Board of Governors on which she served until 1999. During her tenure on the board, she was instrumental in forming the Fund’s guidelines and procedures to better reflect her aunt’s wishes. In addition to making sure each dollar was granted wisely, Mary Imboden wanted to make sure the fund was innovative and specifically met the needs of the city of Baltimore.

About the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund
The William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund commits its resources to enhance the region’s economy and quality of life by making investments in arts and culture. Its grants support artistic and cultural organizations and their partners through initiatives that enhance an individual’s sense of self and pleasure and make Baltimore a more attractive place to live and work.

About the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance
The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA) creates equity and opportunity In, Through, and For arts and culture in Greater Baltimore. A leading nonprofit provider of services to artists and cultural organizations in the region, GBCA believes in unifying and strengthening all members of the creative community. We do this through marketing, education, financial support, and developing innovative programs that increase equity in the cultural sector and beyond. To learn more about GBCA, please visit www.baltimoreculture.org.