2016 Los Angeles Artadia Awardees Announced

Artadia is pleased to announce the awardees for the 2016 Los Angeles Artadia Awards: Dan Finsel and Mariah Garnett.

The 2016 Los Angeles Artadia Awardees will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funds as well as access to the ongoing benefits of the Artadia Awards program. This is Artadia's second year providing unrestricted Awards to artists in Los Angeles. Applications for the 2016 Los Angeles Artadia Awards were open to any visual artist living in Los Angeles County, CA for over two years, working in all media and at any stage of their career.

In the first round of evaluations, Jarrett Gregory, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA and Mark Beasley, Curator at Performa, New York, NY selected five finalists from 684 submissions. Kris Kuramitsu, Deputy Director and Senior Curator, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, CA joined Gregory for the second round of evaluations. The jurors conducted studio visits with each of the five finalists to determine the Awardees.

Jarrett Gregory emphasized the depth of each Awardee's practice: "Both Mariah Garnett and Dan Finsel address the complexities of personal identity in unexpected and completely different ways. For Dan this involves acting theory and therapy; for Mariah, research and reenactment. This notion of the self as a malleable and unpredictable entity felt especially relevant to us within the landscape of Los Angeles as well as in the year 2016. Dan's work called to mind the early experiments of Paul McCarthy or Chris Burden but with a decidedly Feminist approach to the body. Mariah's strategy for filmmaking is thoughtful and effortless even in it's layered complexity. She addresses gender and identity in a way that liberates these subjects while bringing them into the present moment with a fresh perspective."

Kris Kuramitsu also extolled the work of each artist: "It is such a privilege to be able to recognize Mariah Garnett and Dan Finsel with the Los Angeles Artadia Award. Mariah Garnett tells powerful, personal stories in a visually and conceptually compelling way; her videos and installations are as much a pleasure to experience as they are affecting. Dan Finsel's strange, complex videos, drawings and sculptures offer a glimpse of the psychological and social machinations that comprise our identities. He plumbs the often fraught
relationship we have with our own bodies to create work that echoes in the mind long after you leave the gallery."

The 2016 Los Angeles Artadia Awardees will be eligible for the inaugural National Artadia Award to be presented at the end of 2016. Additionally, starting in 2017, Artadia will run grant cycles in each of its program cities every year. Through Annual Award cycles and the introduction of a National Award, Artadia will provide even more exceptional artists across the U.S. with consistent support.

The Los Angeles Artadia Awards are made possible by Artadia's dedicated Board of Directors, Council members, and many generous individuals throughout the country.

Artadia is a national non-profit organization that supports artists with unrestricted, merit-based Awards followed by a lifetime of program opportunities. Artadia is unique in that it allows any artist to apply, engages nationally recognized curators to review work, and culminates in direct grants. Since 1999, Artadia has awarded over $3 million to more than 300 artists in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.