The Awardees will each receive $10,000 in unrestricted funds, as well as access to the ongoing benefits of the Artadia Award program. The decision followed an extensive jury process, culminating in a virtual studio visit with jurors Natalie Dupêcher, Associate Curator of Modern Art, the Menil Collection and PJ Gubatina Policarpio, Independent Curator, Writer, and Manager of Youth Development at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Regarding the Awardees, Natalie Dupêcher notes, “In his multimedia, collage-based objects, Robert Hodge collects and manipulates a vast array of foraged materials—from classroom maps and vinyl records to decades-old magazines and his own, experimental prints—to explore the interrelation of past and future, self and community. Gathering materials and conducting fieldwork along the Mexico-United States border landscape, Verónica Gaona creates spare, sometimes ephemeral objects, installations, and performances that explore the poetics of migration and permanence, memory and loss. Preetika Rajgariah makes visually lush yoga mat paintings, intricate performances, and installations; autobiographical and often mordantly funny, her work pushes against Western aesthetics and beauty standards, centering her own body as a site and instrument of decolonization. In these very different but rigorous and richly imaginative practices, Hodge, Gaona, and Rajgariah each explore some of the most pressing issues of our time.”

Click here to read the full Press Release.

This year’s Finalists for the Award included Jessica Carolina González, Cindee Travis Klement, and Karen Navarro, selected by jurors Natalie Dupêcher, Associate Curator of Modern Art, the Menil Collection; María Elena Ortiz, Curator, the Pérez Art Museum Miami; and Jami Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art, Hood Museum of Art.