Queer|Artwork Will Award $10,000 to a Black Trans Femme Artist
Purposes for the Queer|Artwork Illuminations Grant, a $10,000 annual award given to a Black trans lady or trans femme visible artist, are open by means of June 12. That is the grant’s third yr.
Queer|Artwork is a New York nonprofit based in 2009 to “assist a technology of LGBTQ+ artists that misplaced mentors to the AIDS Disaster of the Nineteen Eighties,” in keeping with the group’s web site. Along with giving a wide range of awards, Queer|Artwork offers a year-long mentorship program and holds occasions like exhibitions, movie screenings, performances, and panel discussions that spotlight the work of LGBTQ+ artists.
“The Illuminations Grant not solely highlights the missing illustration of Black trans ladies within the visible arts but additionally seeks to confront the systemic limitations that deny them inventive alternatives and a sustainable craft,” mentioned Aaryn Lang in a assertion. Lang, a vocal champion of the Black transgender group, helped develop the Illuminations Grant alongside artist Serena Jara and the grant’s funder, photographer Mariette Pathy Allen.
In 2020, Brooklyn-based artist Keioui Keijaun obtained the Illuminations Grant and final yr, New Orleans-based artist Lee Laa Ray Giullory received the award. Giullory makes use of meticulously staged and altered pictures to discover Black mysticism and Black femme identities in rural Louisiana.
The winners are chosen by a panel of three judges, which this yr included artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase, curator and writer Kimberly Drew, and performer and style illustrator Connie Fleming.
Qualifying mediums for the Illuminations Grant embrace portray and drawing, sculpture and ceramics, printmaking, pictures, and fiber arts, however video mediums may also be thought of.
The winner will obtain $10,000 and profession improvement assets, and 4 finalists will obtain $1,250. The winner can be introduced in September. The appliance will be accessed on Queer | Artwork’s web site, right here.