COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) and the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Visual Arts Fellowship awards.
The 2023 Visual Arts Fellowship recipients, chosen from 162 applicants, are: Dillon Beck, Brett Davis, Marsha Mack and Alek Shabazz.
Each Fellowship recipient receives a $10,000 cash award and is featured at the Columbus Museum of Art as part of Greater Columbus: The 2024 Greater Columbus Arts Council Visual Arts Awards Exhibition. Additionally, all Visual Arts Fellowship recipients are invited to apply for GCAC’s Artist Exchange program to Dresden, Germany after the fellowship is completed.
2023 Visual Arts Fellowship recipient bios:
Dillon Beck (he/him) is a Columbus-based contemporary artist, muralist and designer. His work has always found its footing somewhere in the realm between analog and digital, between the real and the impossible. With a keen eye for detail and a vibrant imagination, Beck creates mixed-media works that transport viewers to ethereal worlds, a place they’ve never been that somehow feels oddly familiar.
Brett Davis’ (he/him) practice draws connections between art-making and fatherhood through explorations of love, care, joy, domestic space, intergenerational relationships and transnational possibility. He collaborates closely with his three-year-old child, Toko, as a method to disrupt the hierarchies of family, empower a young child and translate the experience of parenthood into visual art. The results of their making take the form of expansive, materially rich intermedia installations and self-published artist books.
Marsha Mack (she/her) holds an MFA in ceramics and a Certificate of Advanced Study in women’s and gender studies from Syracuse University, and a BFA in ceramics from San Francisco State University. Working primarily in ceramic and found objects, Mack’s artistic practice seeks to construct the physical and psychological conditions of paradise. Her interest in cultural consumption and the formation of identity serves as wellspring for embellished objects and installations that play to the subconscious, honoring playfulness and introspection as equals. She is the gallery manager of Fresh A.I.R. Gallery and SEEN Studios, and an adjunct professor of ceramics at The Ohio State University.
Alek Shabazz (she/her), also known as ASLUR, is a Columbus-based multimedia disciplinary artist with a wide range of mediums from silk screen printing to photography. She believes dreams are representations of self-reflection and evaluation, meaning anything we have psychically possessed is never completely gone. With this in mind, she seeks to use her art as a means to explore the connection between dreams and memory and how that affects how we interact with the world and more importantly, ourselves.
The 2023 Visual Arts Fellowships were juried in a blind review process by Lily Siegel, executive director of Hamiltonian Artists in Washington, D.C.; Kurt Mueller, senior director of David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles; and a third juror who wishes to remain anonymous.
“This year for the Visual Arts Fellowships, we received the highest submission count to date,” said Dayvon Nichols, GCAC grants and community engagement associate. “Not only does this speak to the demand for support and opportunities for artists, but this fellowship also gave us further insight into the amazing talent that we continue to support here in Columbus. I am so happy to have had the honor of witnessing the skill and talent of every submission presented. Truly exceptional. Undeniably inspirational.”
Mission of the Columbus Museum of Art: To create great experiences with great art for everyone. columbusmuseum.org
Mission of the Greater Columbus Arts Council: To support and advance the arts and cultural fabric of Columbus. www.gcac.org
The Greater Columbus Arts Council receives major financial support from the City of Columbus, Franklin County Commissioners, the Ohio Arts Council and The Ohio State University.
For translations of this release and other pages, please see the dropdown menu at the top right corner of gcac.org.
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CONTACT: Jami Goldstein
(614) 221-8492
jgoldstein@gcac.org
