Headlands Center for the Arts Announces Recipient of 2016 Chiaro Award

Headlands Center for the Arts today announced that Firelei Báez is the recipient of its 2016 Chiaro Award, a fully sponsored artist residency and $15,000 cash prize for an accomplished mid-career painter residing in the U.S. The annual Chiaro Award, established in 2014, is designed to have a meaningful impact on the life and career of an artist by recognizing their past success and sustaining their practice more deeply with direct financial support. Ms. Báez (who was an Artist in Residence at Headlands in 2013) was selected from 60 applicants by a panel of jurists, including artist and Headlands' Alumni (AIR '12) Judie Bamber; Alexandra Schwartz, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Montclair Art Museum, NJ; and Matt Sussman, writer and Associate Editor of Art Practical.

The Chiaro Award includes a residency of six to ten weeks at Headlands Center for the Arts with use of a private studio and comfortable housing, chef-prepared meals with other residents, and a cash award of $15,000. The residency enables Awardees to participate in peer-to-peer creative exchange among the international community of artists on-site at Headlands, while facilitating the ongoing development of their individual artistic practice.

Headlands Executive Director sharon maidenberg said, "We are so pleased that Firelei will be returning to Headlands next year as the Chiaro Awardee. Since the time of her initial residency at Headlands, her work has continued to develop in rigor and insight. We are delighted that the panel recognized the tremendous provocation of historic and contemporary culture that her work illuminates, and we happily extend the support of the Chiaro Award toward her practice."

The artist's vibrant and intricate work informed by her many interests-including anthropology, science fiction, diasporic experiences, and black female identity-is the subject of Firelei Báez: Bloodlines, a solo exhibition organized by and currently on view at the Perez Art Museum Miami, FL.

Next year's application period for the 2017 Chiaro Award is anticipated to run April 11-June 3, 2016. For more information: www.headlands.org/chiaro-award

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