Artadia is pleased to announce the six Finalists for the 2022 Chicago Award:
This year’s Finalists jurors for the 2022 Chicago Awards Cycle were Christina de Léon, Associate Curator, Cooper Hewitt, Negarra A. Kudumu, Independent Curator and Founder/Director, Art + Healing, and Robyn Farrell, Associate Curator, Art Institute of Chicago.
The Finalists will each receive virtual studio visits with second-round jurors, who will ultimately select three artists to receive $10,000 unrestricted funds.
“It is not often in the course of one’s work as a curator that one gets to sit with colleagues operating nationally and share critical insights about aesthetic sensibilities and conceptual rigor and relevance,” Kudumu shares, reflecting on the process. Léon adds, “being a juror for Artadia opened my eyes to artists in the Chicago area that I would not have otherwise had the opportunity to encounter. It was an illuminating and thought-provoking process that I felt privileged to be a part of.” Kudumu sees the Chicago finalists as “a compelling group whose work is already outstanding and relevant. Each artist showed a commitment to pushing the boundaries of their practice beyond any observable logical conclusion. It was a breath of fresh air and I look forward to following their progress in the years to come.”
The 2022 Chicago Artadia Award application was open to visual artists working in any visual media, at any stage in their career, who have been living and working within Chicago Cook County for a minimum of two years. This was Artadia’s thirteenth Awards cycle in Chicago.
Since its founding in 1999, Artadia has awarded over $5 million in unrestricted funds to over 350 artists. Celebrating visual artists and the foundational role they play in shaping society, the Artadia Award benefits three artists annually in each of six major US cities with high concentrations of creative workers—Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Beyond the grant, the Award includes lifelong access to a community of fellow artists and patrons. The Artadia Award is designed to provide essential funding and recognition to artists at pivotal points in their careers, strengthen their communities, and spur new levels of career achievement.
The 2022 Chicago Artadia Awards are generously supported by the Joyce Foundation, the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, the Artadia Board of Directors, Artadia Council Members, and individual donors across the country.
Image Captions:
Top, left to right: Ashley January, Judith Mullen, Maryam Taghavi; Bottom, left to right: Selva Aparicio, Azadeh Gholizadeh, Jeffly Gabriela Molina