GCAC Awards Individual Artists Fellowships in Visual Arts

The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) announced the recipients of the 2006 Individual Artist Fellowships (IAF) in Visual Arts. The fellowship recipients, chosen from 126 applicants, are Abdi Roble (photography), Tim Rietenbach (2D Visual), Philip Brou (2D Visual), and Steven Thurston (3D Visual). Each artist will receive $5,000, based on the artistic merit of the works submitted. Biographical information about each recipient follows.

"The Fellowship program reinforces the City's support of the creative industry," said Diane Nance, Vice President for Programs. "Artists who choose to live and work in Columbus reward us with new ways to appreciate our culturally rich community."

Established in 1986, the GCAC Individual Artist Fellowship Program recognizes outstanding artists in Franklin County by awarding fellowships in varied artistic disciplines. Awards are offered in visual arts (2D, 3D, photography, and crafts) each year and in creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) every two years. Categories for other years have included playwriting, music composition, choreography / movement arts, and film/video. Since then, over 125 fellowships have been awarded in a variety of mediums. The awards, recommended in an anonymous review process by panelists from outside central Ohio, are based on the quality of work previously created. GCAC fellowships are intended to assist local artists in any manner they choose to support the creation of new works and/or the advancement of their careers. By recognizing their work, GCAC endeavors to help keep the Columbus area a vital place in which artists can live and work. The Columbus program is one of the few local fellowship programs in the country.

Members of the 2006 IAF panel, who reviewed all applications and recommended fellowships were: Phil Collins, Karla Hackenmiller, and Nicholas Kripal. Biographical information about each panelist follows.

An additional GCAC fellowship was made possible this year through the generosity of Annie's Fund — a foundation created in honor of surgeon, artist, and arts patron Anne Miller. Until her untimely death in 1998, Anne Miller worked as both an established member of the medical community and a dedicated artist specializing in the hand crafted arts —those created by people with little or no formal training and without regard to the mainstream art world's recognition or marketplace. This special award celebrates Anne's commitment to this art form's visionary quality and the recipient's work embodies this bold concept. The panel recommended Tim Rietenbach for the Annie's Fund award.

2006 Individual Artists Fellowship Recipients

Photography
Abdi Roble immigrated to the United States in 1989 and later moved to Columbus, where he developed his passion for photography. He started two photography groups — the Focus Group (1998) and the African American Photographers of North America (1999). He is also the founder of the Somali Documentary Project Inc. (2003). His exhibitions include One Month in Europe with Leica (2000), Leica Portrait of Cuba (2002), Japan: A Leica Perspective at the (2004), the Somali Diaspora at the Riffe Gallery (2005), the Somali Diaspora at MAPP'S Coffee + Tea in Minneapolis, MN. (2005), and most recently, Against Forgetting: Beyond Genocide and Civil War at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN. (2006). Roble is also the recipient of the 2004 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship.

2D Visual
Tim Rietenbach lives in Victorian Village with his wife Tamie and their three boys Eric, Sam and Cole. He has been a member of the Foundations faculty at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) since the fall of 1992. His current rank is Associate Professor. He has served as the Visiting Artist Coordinator and is currently the Director of Student Exhibitions. He received his BFA in painting from CCAD in 1979 and his MFA in Sculpture from The Ohio State University in 1991.During the years between 1979 and 1992 he lived, worked and exhibited in New York City. Tim has been the recipient of three Ohio Arts Council individual artist fellowships. He has also been fortunate to receive the generous support of the Greater Columbus Arts Council and a CCAD Faculty Enrichment grant toward the installation of "Gigantic" (a one hundred foot tall human skeleton) in COSI. Originally shown in The Springfield Museum of Art, "Gigantic was part of a Solo exhibition based on the human skeleton. Currently he is preparing presidential portraits for an exhibition this June at Spaces Gallery in Cleveland Ohio.

2D Visual
Philip Brou grew up in a military family that moved around the world. A good portion of his childhood was spent in Brussels, Belgium where his father worked for NATO. Brou graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999). He attended The Vermont Studio Center's artist residency program (2000), and, with a Full Presidential Fellowship, earned Master's degree in Painting and Drawing from The Ohio State University (2004). After graduation, Brou received an appointment as a Visiting Lecturer at OSU. He has exhibited in regional, national, and international shows such as "Made in Ohio" -curated by Annagreth Nill and exhibited at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, "Unruled" -curated by Mark Harris and exhibited at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York City, and "Crossing Borders" -a group show exhibited a York University in Toronto Canada. Brou's work on research-oriented projects involves ideas of "self," working with subjects and people as diverse as a Guinness World Record-holding forensic artist, the hospital where he was born, Steven Speilberg's childhood home, Space Probe Voyager 1, and the one of the Midwest's most fascinating phenomena: the tornado.

3D Visual
Steven Thurston
Born in 1965 in Waterville, Maine Steven Thurston received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI and his BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After two years as Visiting Artist at The Ohio State University he was hired as a tenure track faculty where he has been since 1996 currently as an Associate Professor of Art. Outside of the academic institutions, Steven has held several Artist- in-Residence positions, most notably, The Alternative Work site at Bemis in Omaha, Nebraska; The Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum in the Netherlands; and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts Edgecomb, Maine. He also had the great opportunity to work for General Motors in the Design Department as a Clay Modeler. Steven has received numerous awards for his research, including the prestigious Pollack-Krasner Fellowship, a NEA Fellowship, a 1996 and 1999 Ohio Arts Council Individual Fellowship as well as a 1996 Greater Columbus Art Council's Individual Fellowship. He has exhibited and lectured both nationally and internationally on his work and the integration of new dimensional imaging technologies within a studio setting.

2006 Individual Artists Fellowships in the Visual Arts — Panelists

Phil Collins
Phil Collins belongs to a generation of artists whose engagement with people, place and community is central to their work. Instinctively distrustful of the camera and its effects, yet responsive to its potential as an instigator of relationships, his works often revolve around a convocation of individuals. Complicating both the myth of aesthetic autonomy and the fantasy of art as in itself political, Collins' films, photographs, installations and live events appropriate the documentary tradition and elements of popular culture, such as pop-music and dance, to establish an immediate and subtly critical connection with the participant and viewer.

Collins was awarded the Absolut Prize in 2000, and the Paul Hamlyn Award in 2001. His work has been shown in museums and galleries worldwide, and is represented in many public and private collections in Europe and the US.

Recent solo exhibitions include: S.M.A.K., Gent (2006); the return of the real, Nederlands Fotomuseum, 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam (2006); assume freedom, University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, CA (2006); yeah....you, baby you, Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes (2005); they shoot horses, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH (2005). Recent group exhibitions include: Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2006, The Photographers' Gallery, London (2006); British Art Show 6, BALTIC The Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2005); Istanbul, 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2005); Populism, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, and Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2005); Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Hayward Gallery, London (2005).

In recent years, Collins has lived and worked in numerous locations, including Belfast, Belgrade, Baghdad, Bogotá, and is currently based in the UK. He is represented by Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. Collins is the 2006 Wexner Center Residency Award recipient.

Karla Hackenmiller
Karla Hackenmiller is a practicing artist and educator in Athens, Ohio. She has been working with print media for more than ten years, in addition to creating drawings and mixed media pieces. In 2003, she established "giusto!studio," her print studio and private workspace. She exhibits nationally as well as internationally and participates regularly in exchange portfolios. She has been invited to give lectures and produce prints at many institutions across the country. She is also serving her second term as an officer for the Mid America Print Council. OU will host the regional conference for the Mid America Print Council in September 2006.

Hackenmiller was Assistant Director of Frogman's Print & Paper Workshops, a national art event in South Dakota that has drawn hundreds of artists and students from across the country. In 1998 she accepted a teaching position at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, which she held for five years before moving to Ohio in the fall of 2003. Alongside of her professional activities in the arts, her priorities lie in the academic and artistic development of her students at Ohio University, where she serves as Chair of the Printmaking Department. She holds a BFA in printmaking from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls and an MFA in printmaking from University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

Nicholas Kripal
Nicholas Kripal's recent wall sculptures "explore the function of memory, and the role of universal symbols." His site-specific installation at Corpus Christi in Baltimore referenced the architectural and religious iconography of the sacred space. A recent sculptural series of cast cement fonts were based on floor plans of Italian cathedrals.

With a specialty in ceramics and glass, Kripal received his B.F.A. and his M.S. from the University of Nebraska, Kearney, and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. His work is exhibited throughout the world: NCECA Exhibition, Yingee Ceramic Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; Newcastle Regional Art Museum, Newcastle, Australia; Casa Principal Museo, Veracruz, Mexico; U.S. Representative, Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; and at galleries including White Box, Temple, and Snyderman Galleries in Philadelphia, and the Delaware center for Contemporary Arts in Wilmington. He received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2000), three fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a grant from Pollock-Krasner Foundation, an Artist's Fellowship from the Michigan Council for the Arts, and was in residence at LaNapoule Art Foundation in France, and Art Park in Lewiston, New York. Kripal is Professor and Chair of Crafts Department at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia.