The International Sculpture Center is proud to present the winners of the 2001 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. This year’s award program attracted twice the number of nominees from 2001: 205 nominees from 46 college and university sculpture programs in North America and abroad. The jury selected 16 winners and 9 honorable mentions. This annual award was founded in 1994 to recognize young sculptors and to encourage their continued commitment to the field of sculpture, as well as to recognize the award winners’ faculty sponsors and their institutions. The 16 award recipients will participate in Grounds For Sculpture’s Fall/Winter Exhibition, in Hamilton, New Jersey, from September 29, 2001–January 6, 2002.
Sculpture departments of universities, colleges, and art schools with current ISC Institutional Level Membership are eligible for the award program and may nominate up to five students currently enrolled in a sculpture program. For more information about Institutional Level Membership and the 2002 nomination process, contact Carol Sterling, Director of Education and ISC Resource Center at 609-689-1051, ext. 107 or e-mail: carol@sculpture.org. To read more about the ISC Student Awards program click here.
The ISC also awarded a complimentary student membership to all of the 205 nominees in the 2001 program.
The honorable mention recipients are: M. Colby Brewer, Faculty Sponsor: Brian Christensen, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Brad Connell, Faculty Sponsor: Jack Gron, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky; Mark H. Cowardin, Faculty Sponsor: Moira Geoffrion, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; Matthew Dehaemers, Faculty Sponsor: Aristotle Georgiades, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Rama Hoetzlein, Faculty Sponsor: Alastair Noble, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Hannah Israel, Faculty Sponsor: William Carlson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois; Raymond Knoll, Faculty Sponsor: James Nestor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania; Allison Lacher, Faculty Sponsor: Dale Newkirk, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; James Poulos; Faculty Sponsor, Larry W. Millard, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
Jurors for the program were: Richard Hunt, sculptor; Wendy Feurer, public art and urban design consultant; and Karen Wilkin, curator, writer, and critic.
Jason Burgess
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana, PA
Faculty Sponsor: James Nestor
“Making art seems to be the only thing I can do…I have dreams of stockpiles of objects, matter, propped against moldy walls, light coming from underneath.”
Jerod Christy
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH
Faculty Sponsor: Shawn Morin
“Intrinsic in every raw material are attributes which communicate the essence of simplicity, history, and spirit. These pieces reflect a longing for the icons and symbols of an era less complicated, a way of thinking that is more benign.”
James Kevin Dowdee
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL
Faculty Sponsor: Richard Beckman
“I strive to bring a bit of concrete reality to my pieces through the common and the practical, while also finding a way to transform that reality through the temporal and performative. I hope for giddy silence with a touch of twisted reality.”
Liliana Duque-Piñeiro
University of Cinncinati
Cinncinati, OH
Faculty Sponsor: Linda Einfalt
“My work has its origin in Colombian reality, marked by an unfair internal conflict intensified by revenge and hatred. The sculptures are the reconstructions of human bodies out of used furniture, objects that belonged to somebody and have witnessed an extinguished life.”
Jin Man Jo
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA
Faculty Sponsor: Isabel Barbuzza
“My labor is my being, my self-discovery, and my only hope to recover humanity in the modern world. I make huge sculptures. In long, hard sessions, I work slowly and steadily, just as single drops make holes in large rocks.”
Haegeen Kim
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
Faculty Sponsor: Joe Seipel
“I am fascinated with the simple yet profound visual possibilities in the trivial things we easily pass by. Using objects and materials whose value is diminished through everyday use, I explore the ‘forgotten familiarity’ that is a natural part of our lives.”
Cal Lane
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Faculty Sponsor: John Greer
“I examine social and cultural ideas by working with visual codes. I appreciate how three-dimensional form involves the space we are in, how it becomes a part of the world, without an obvious function.”
Keely McCool
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ
Faculty Sponsor: Walt Swales
“I use few materials in my work, incorporating slate, wood, pine needles, and leaves, and minimize their compositions. My pieces are derived from my need for solitude, simplicity, and silence and evidence the beauty that can be born out of chaos.”
Zeke Moores
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Faculty Sponsor: John Greer
“I tend to work intuitively and spontaneously, with a strong response to the material. I place a lot of value on physical effort and the act of doing. My work is never over-intellectualized.”
Ethan Murrow
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Faculty Sponsor: Beth Grabowski
“I firmly believe that fiction can be a place to experiment with and test the limits of reality. I seek to be honest about the narrative and history I invent. My pieces are not loaded with actual rust and grime or found objects. These dirt-encrusted objects are new yet beaten, fresh yet weathered. I do not have the treasures of my own history that I desire, so I create my own.”
Ruth Nicholson
Lusad Loughborough University
Loughborough, UK
Faculty Sponsor: John Atkin
“The content of my work is recently influenced by my fascination with physiology, genetics, and, more recently, the movement of the skin as surface and its reaction to manipulation. I construct machines to serve as a metaphor, to re-enact and exaggerate the motion of organs, juxtaposing mechanics with flesh.”
Brian Roberts
Miami University of Ohio
Oxford, OH
Faculty Sponsor: James Killy
“My work draws heavily on my agricultural background, linking with my family’s farming roots. I investigate the irony of some biotech seeds being sterile. I embed the consequences of this incongruity into images of the granary, a symbol of agricultural abundance and fertility.”
Takatomo Tomita
University of the Arts
Philadelphia, PA
Faculty Sponsor: Barry Parker
“I make figurative toys. The emotion or expression in them can be shared with everyone, but as people get older, they forget some emotions. I would like my toys to help people get those precious memories back.”
Sue Wheatley
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI
Faculty Sponsor: Aris Georgiades
“My work pares furniture down to its basic minimal function. But on further exploration, the initial comfort of balance and created spaces becomes a dilemma between mind and body, of comfort and discomfort, of function and non-function.”
Shencheng Xu
Rhinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art
Baltimore, MD
Faculty Sponsor: Maren Hassinger
“Traditional elements and strict training play an important role in my work, but that cannot prevent me from exploring and studying contemporary art. To create a specific form is no longer my main focus. I am trying to find vitality from each piece of material.”
Rebecca Young
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
Faculty Sponsor: Moira Geoffrion
“The objects I make reflect my life extremes. I play out my own little dramas. Each part plays a role, feeding off whatever is surrounding it, including the viewer. I strive for the sensual, with a comic tone.”
