Skylark
Press is pleased to announce the winners of the
2008-2009 Skylark Prize competition.
The Skylark Prize is awarded to an artist
whose work has proven to be innovative, while consistent
in quality. The award — a sculpture, designed by
internationally acclaimed artist Richard Erdman — is
accompanied by:
- A Cash Prize of $2,000
- An exclusive 6 week fully paid Fellowship
(including trips to Beijing and Shanghai), at the prestigious
Sias International University, in Zhengzhou, China
- Exhibition at Skylark Fine Art Gallery
in Los Angeles
- Listing in the catalog produced for
the winning artists
- An editorial on the artist's work by
media sponsor Fabrik Magazine.
Closing Night
Reception:
Saturday,
January 24, 2009
Art critic and writer Peter
Frank will be on hand to talk about the winning artist's
work.
Awards Presentation and Group
Show Opening Reception was held Thursday, January 8, 2009. Click
here to view photos of the Group Show Opening Ceremony.
Awards
2008-2009 Winner: David
McDonald
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank (Art critic and Senior
Riverside Museum Curator):
"David McDonald has established himself nationally with
an ongoing body of work that conflates minimalism, "material
abstraction," and an emphatically painterly sensibility.
The roughness and obduracy of the object's ingredients gives
it evident weight, but its self-containment proves endearingly
graceful, and often surprising, as it partly blends in with
its architectural surroundings. Indeed, the work's gritty
modesty and low-key sensuality save it from self-conscious
formula. McDonald's art does not pose as abject; to the contrary,
it asserts the dignity of its form and substance."
David McDonald was born in Liverpool,
England and received his art education in Boston (School
of the Museum of Fine Arts) and California. (MFA, CalArts,
Valencia). His work has over the years been shown in numerous
galleries and museums, amongst which The Chapel Gallery in
Boston, Charlotte Jackson in Santa Fe, NM and more recently
Newspace, and Jancon Gallery in Los Angeles and BF Annex
in Boston.
More information can be found on his website: http://www.davidmcdonaldart.com
Additional Prizes
Five additional artists — Nancy
Braver, Connie Goldman, Jamie McMurry, Joan Schulze and
Tommy White — were selected by juror Peter Frank
for a Sias Fellowship and/or inclusion in the exhibition
at Skylark Fine Art Gallery and publication in the exhibition
catalog. Each of these artists will also receive editorial
coverage in Fabrik Magazine.
Nancy Braver
An additional Fellowship at Sias University is awarded
to Nancy Braver.
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank:
Nancy Braver builds on her own experience as a sculptor and
contemporary artist to create elegant, witty, logical yet
playful and even magical structures whose myriad segments
mirror and elaborate one another with an almost biological
logic. Braver's forms are stark, their presence is forceful,
their colors are bold and sweet, but the light that animates
all these is soft and gentling — a modifying factor
that makes every other element cohere.
Nancy Braver received her MFA and BFA
degrees from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia,
California. Since 1994 she has been showing sculptural and
installation work locally and internationally. Her public
projects and studio works take different approaches to an
investigation of how people and objects interact in architectural
spaces. Commissions and projects include sculptural installations
for the University of Utah; The Los Angeles department of
Cultural Affairs; The New Towne Fashion Mart Wholesale Center
and The Medallion, both in downtown Los Angeles.
For more information visit, http://www.nancybraverstudio.com
Connie Goldman
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank:
Goldman responds as much intuitively as logically to a given
formulation, revealing possibilities that can seem eccentric,
even rhapsodic. A classic calm prevails, however, provided
principally by a cool, often dark palette. For all their
starkness, then, Goldman's paintings, if anything, temper
rather than agitate the eye; indeed, they can function as
objects of contemplation, loci of calm, if not stillness,
whose presence infers harmony and balance.
Connie Goldman received a Master of Fine
Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. San Francisco,
and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, from the University
of Texas at Austin. Her work has over the years been seen
in numerous museum and gallery shows, amongst which Peter
Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Santa Rosa, CA, El Paso Museum of Art and the Housatonic
Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She is currently
Adjunct Professor of Art at Santa Rosa Junior College; Painting,
Drawing and Design Department. Connie Goldman lives in Northern
California.
More info at: http://conniegoldman.photoshop.com
Joan Schulze
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank:
Joan Schulze is best known as a quilt-maker; but the quilts
she makes function physically like collages, the collages
she realizes depend heavily on fabric, and her prints, too,
embrace both the formal balances and discontinuities of collage
while radiating quilt-like sensuality. This is no mere demonstration
clearly of virtuosity; it is an ongoing display of discretion,
a constant matching of medium to material, content to context,
that finds Schulze experimenting constantly with both element
and medium, matching one to the other or, conversely, deriving
one from the other.
Joan Schulze's resume reveals a career
that has expanded over a number of decades; she received
her education at the University of Illinois, and her work
has been widely exhibited and published in a number of prestigious
catalogs and publications. A selection of her extensive resume:
Renwick/Smithsonian American Art Museum Washington, DC; Museum
of Arts & Design, New York City; Ararat Regional Art
Museum, Melbourne Australia; The Danish Textile Museum; The
Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing.
More info at: http://www.joan-of-arts.com
Jamie McMurry
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank:
Jamie McMurry's approach to performance art frees the discipline
from the stage and returns it to where it began in the context
of art: out in life itself. Renewing the efforts of Allan
Kaprow and the artists of Fluxus, McMurry conceives of and
carries out tasks and efforts whose sense of spectacle resides
in their absurdity, their surprise, and their often sport-like
expenditure of energy. The dissolution they effect between
quotidian existence and the
"special realm" — creates the realm of unanticipated
entertainment and heightened awareness — that art provides.
Jamie McMurry's resume offers a plethora
of documented performances as well as visual documentation
of these performances that have in turn become independent
artworks themselves (Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles; Matuacana
100, Santiago, Chile; University of Wales, Cardiff, UK; Institute
of Modern Art, Valencia, Spain; Substation Gallery, Singapore).
McMurry's contribution to the exhibition will be a video
compilation of recent performances as well as a live performance
during the opening reception.
More info at: http://www.mcmurryperformance.com
Tommy White
 From
the jury report, by Peter Frank:
Tommy White's exuberant abstractions, composed of diverse
forms arrayed in rhythmic counterpoint across and around
the picture plane, have their source in a vision that manifests
what can only be called a childlike sophistication. White's
carefully reasoned and yet thoroughly ingratiating paintings
aren't the kind of abstractions your kid could do; they're
the kind of abstractions your kid should do.
Tommy White received his M.F.A. in Painting from the Clemson
University in Clemson, South Carolina and a B.A. in Ceramics
from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
His work has been predominantly shown in Missouri (Foundry
Art Center, St, Louis), Virginia (Main art Gallery, Richmond),
and South Carolina (Stanback Museum, South Carolina State
University, Orangeburg. Mr. White is also the Assistant Professor
of Painting at the University of Oklahoma and resides in
Norman, Oklahoma.
More info at http://www.tommywhiteartist.com
Skylark Prize Partners & Sponsors
Skylark Media Group
Founded in 2007, Skylark Media Group works
in partnership with artists and assists in building careers
through communication tools such as catalogs, books, consulting
services and exhibition programs.
More info can be found at http://www.skylarkmediagroup.com
Sias International University
Sias International University is the first
university in China solely financed by an American citizen.
Founded in 1998, it is also the only university in China
approved by the government to fly both the American and Chinese
flags. Authorized by Henan Province's State Degree Office
to offer a standard degree program that includes the study
of Western Civilization, Sociology, Engineering, Art, Government
English, Music and more than sixty other majors, Sias currently
has an enrollment of over 17,000 students.
The University was envisioned, developed
and financed by Shawn Chen, a Chinese American citizen born
and raised in China and educated in both China and the United
States.Ê After receiving his Masters Degree in the
US and doing additional post-graduate work at UCLA and Harvard
University, Chen achieved the classic American dream by building
successful businesses in both manufacturing and the hospitality
industries.Ê
His efforts to create a private institution
of higher learning in China are a direct outgrowth of his
mission to bring new ideas and a more open approach to the
dialogue in which China and the United States are now engaged.
He views Sias International University as a mechanism through
which students are challenged and inspired and through which
leaders from the East and West can meet and profit from the
exchange of ideas and good will.
Quoted in a major Los Angeles Times article
published in December, 2007, Shawn Chen said, "My
vision is for a very different model of education in China.
I want to build an environment in which ethics, industry
and creativity can flourish." To that end, he is
currently working on developing The Institute for Social
Responsibility and a groundbreaking Environmental Studies
program with some of the most progressive environmental leaders
currently working in China. The University also just instituted
a residency program involving five artists selected by The
Carving Studio and Sculpture Center in Vermont. In 2009,
Sias plans to host another twelve international sculptors
who will create permanent works of monumental art on the
campus. The 2007 Los Angeles Times article noted that in
just nine years, Sias has become one of China's fastest growing
universities. Although the school started with only 300 students
and two buildings in 1998, Sias is now physically the size
of American universities such as the University of Southern
California and expects to serve more than 18,000 students
in 2009. Sias partners in the United States include Fort
Hays State University in Kansas, Rowan University in New
Jersey, Whittier College in California and West Connecticut
University in Connecticut.
More info can be found at http://www.sias.edu.cn/en/
Fabrik Magazine
Fabrik profiles some of the most influential,
creative innovators and features trendsetting artists, gallery
owners, interior designers and fashion designers inhabiting
Los Angeles. Fabrik unmasks the person behind the persona.
Fabrik explores the underlying structure
of what makes Los Angeles so unique. Fabrik champions the
prolific visionaries and imaginative risk-takers that make
this one of the greatest cities in the world to live and
work in.
More info can be found at http://www.fabrikmagazine.com
Fancifull Wine and Gifts
Sponsor of the Opening Reception at Skylark
Fine Art Gallery, Thursday, January 8, 2009.
More info can be found at http://www.fancifull.com
Further Inquiries
For further information please contact
our offices at:
Skylark Prize Competition
c/o Skylark Press
269 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 1188
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Tel: (310) 657-0336
Email: Info@skylarkpress.com
Sponsors
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