The Walters Art Museum on Wednesday opened an exhibit showcasing the work of three finalists competing for the 2024 Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize, whose winner will be announced next month.
Now in its 19th year, named for two champions of the arts in Baltimore, the award is one of the Maryland’s most prestigious art prizes. The three finalists – weaver Hellen Ascoli, mixed-media artist Amy Boone-McCreesh and ceramicist Sam Mack — are competing for a top award of $30,000.
The Walters Art Museum presents the exhibit in partnership with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA); M&T Bank and the Maryland State Arts Council.
Award jurors are artist, scholar and poet Noel W. Anderson; curator, educator and historian Connie Choi and curator, historian and lecturer Aaron Levi Garvey. Lou Joseph is BOPA’s Prizes and Competitions Manager. Christine Sciacca, curator of European Art for the Walters, is the exhibition curator.
According to the museum and BOPA, here are biographies for the three finalists:
Hellen Ascoli (Guatemala City, Guatemala / Baltimore, Maryland) is a weaver, a word that encompasses the other areas of discourse she situates herself within: art, craft, education, and translation. Ascoli has a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her work has been exhibited internationally. Her solo exhibition, “CIEN TIERRAS,” was exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio and traveled to La Nueva Fábrica in Antigua, Guatemala. She was recently the Pollock-Krasner resident at the International Studio Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, N.Y. She has taught at universities in Guatemala and the United States, and currently teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art while developing her practice in Language Justice.
Amy Boone-McCreesh, born on Loring Air Force Base in Maine, explores the intersection of aesthetics and socio-economic status. She earned her BFA from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, an MFA from Towson University, and a Fellowship with Hamiltonian Artists in Washington, D.C., Based in Baltimore for the last 15 years, she has had her work exhibited nationally at museums, universities, and galleries. Collections include the United States Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico, Facebook, and Capital One. She is a two-time Maryland State Arts Council awardee and a 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship Nominee, as well as a member of the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Towson University.
Sam Mack lives and works in Baltimore. They are an artist working primarily with ceramics and other politicized materials to build site-responsive sculpture. They received their MFA in studio art in 2019 from the School of Art at the University of Arkansas. They have been an artist in residence at Ox Bow School of Art and Artist Residency and at SUNY-New Paltz, and have exhibited nationally and internationally including the JEAE International Arts Center in Jingdezhen, China, the Aichi Ceramics Museum in Seto City, Japan, the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Pa., YNG SP, and the Vernon Filley Art Museum in Pratt, Kans. Mack is represented by Galleri Urbane and is the incoming Area Head and Faculty in Ceramics at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2024-2025).
The winner will be announced on August 22, and the exhibit runs until Sept. 8 at the museum, 600 N. Charles St. In addition to the top prize, each finalist will receive a $2,500 M&T Bank Finalist Award, which is designed in part to assist the artists in preparing for the exhibit. One finalist will receive a studio residency at the Bromo Seltzer Art Tower in Baltimore.
A 90-minute “Artist Talk” with the finalists will be held in the museum’s Graham Auditorium on July 25 starting at 6 p.m. Registration is required.
An exhibit of the work by Sondheim Award semi-finalists for 2024 will take place in the Decker and Meyerhoff galleries at the Maryland Institute College of Art during Artscape, August 2 to 4, with an opening reception on August 2.
The museum’s 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.
More information about the Sondheim finalists is available by visiting promotionandarts.org and following BOPA on social media (@promoand arts).
