Multimedia artist Abigail Lucien is the winner of the 18th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize, awarded Thursday night at the Walters Art Museum.
Finalist Kyrae Duwaun came in second and Nekisha Durrett finished third.
The artists were selected over more than 300 others who applied for the prestigious prize. Their work is on view at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St., until Sept. 3.
Lucien (abigaillucien.com and @abigaillucien), a Haitian-American interdisciplinary artist who teaches sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), will receive $30,000.
“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,” according to a biography that accompanies the museum exhibit.
“Working across sculpture, literature and time-based media, Lucien’s practice is auto-ethnographic: referencing found objects and familiar surroundings as a way to implicate the body’s relationship to material and place – interpreting concepts such as loss, love and grief as a fluid procession rather than a state to reach or become.”
Dawaun (dawaun.com), a visual artist, won a six-week residency at Civitella Ranieri, an American artist’s community in the Umbria region of Italy. Durrett (nekishadurrent.com), a mixed-media artist, will receive a six-month residency at the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) presents the annual award in partnership with the museum, M&T Bank and the Maryland State Arts Council.
Named after two civic leaders who were strong supporters of the arts and Baltimore, the prize is given “to assist in furthering the career of a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region.” Members of the Sondheim family were present at the ceremony last night.
Jurors for the 2023 competition were Kelly Baum, the John and Mary Pappajohn Director of the Des Moines Art Center; Devin N. Morris, a Brooklyn-based artist, and Ingrid Schaffner, Curator at the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum in Marfa, Texas. Lou Joseph is BOPA’s Prizes and Competitions Manager.
Since 2006, the Sondheim Art Prize has awarded more than $400,000 to 16 winners and another $250,000 to more than 100 finalists, according to Joseph and Interim BOPA CEO Todd Yuhanick.
“More than just a monetary award, the Sondheim Art Prize allows BOPA to elevate and celebrate the great artists in the Baltimore region by providing a genuinely exciting program that continues to grow with the addition of the Civitella Ranieri residency in Italy and the studio residency at the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower,” Joseph said.
The work of 14 Sondheim Award semifinalists for 2023 will be exhibited in MICA’s Meyerhoff Gallery, 1303 W. Mount Royal Ave., from Sept. 22 to 24.
Walters Art Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and from 1 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is free.
