Tanne Foundation Announces 2016 Awards

Seven outstanding artists from across the country have received Tanne Foundation Awards for 2016. Now in its eighteenth year, the foundation is pleased to make this announcement as a means of underscoring the importance of its mission to support individual artists with unrestricted funding. The awards, totaling $55,000, honor seven artists in recognition of their artistic achievements as well as one artist-run organization which has presented exceptional work for over 39 years.

The 2016 recipients are:

Sarah Berkeley, Lincoln, Nebraska, is an interdisciplinary artist who works across media, creating public interventions and site-specific durational performances, as well as photography and video. Her work questions cultural norms such as the 9:00 to 5:00work day, the office environment, indoor living, gender inequality, and the voluntary sharing of personal data. She is a recent recipient of the Nebraska Arts Council Distinguished Artist Award and has shown work at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska; Joslyn Museum of Art, Nebraska; Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival, Chicago, Illinois; Louisville Photo Biennial, Kentucky; and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan.

Jimmy James Canales, Crawford, Texas, is a performance artist. He presents his work through site-specific performances, IRL (in real life) inhabitations, treks tethered online, camouflage spectacle suits, and endurance-based actions. He traverses the relationships between artificial, natural, and digital realities. His interests include the representation of the mediated wilderness, his renegotiated "in progress" Tejano identity, and survival field manuals. Among his many adventures, Canales has romanced a cactus, walked across San Antonio five times then all the way to Austin, sacrificed a low-rider bicycle, and conjured up his alter-ego: Mapache Man

Brian Crawford, Chicago, Illinois, is as an actor and performance creator who divides his time between Chicago and Atlanta, Georgia.The collision of classic theatrical forms with the creation of new work has been the focus of Crawford's acting career for over a decade. As a writer and creator, he has developed over ten original full-length plays, and his acting performances have contributed to seventeen world premieres. He is a longtime member of Atlanta's Out Of Hand Theatre with which he created the international sensation HOMINID. Additional works, both classical plays and new creations, have been seen at multiple theaters in Atlanta and Chicago.

Lacy Hale, Ermine, Kentucky, is a visual and mural artist living and working in southeastern Kentucky. Her artwork is rooted in her surroundings and focuses on capturing moments and beauty often overlooked. Each moment holds something dear about the beloved people and places that she needs to share. She has created murals rooted in Kentucky traditions and is currently working on several new commissions. Hale has shown her work throughout Kentucky and nationally, including a traveling Smithsonian exhibit in 2012. She serves on the boards of the Kentucky Arts Council and the Appalachian Artisan Center.

Miranda McLeod, New York, New York, is a fiction and creative nonfiction writer. Her writing considers race, its ambiguities, and the disjuncture between perceived and experienced identity. She also writes about modern conceptions of femininity, particularly as it intersects with the body and aging. Her current project is a book-length creative nonfiction piece about the charged but nuanced relationship between non-white New Yorkers and the New York Police Department. Her published work includes "Trespasser Incident" in Epiphany Magazine, "Lady Alone" in the magazineConfrontation, "Mrs. Schafer Gets Fit" in Willow Springs Magazine, "Jellyfish Lake" in the The Sunday Times of London, and "You Can Teach Me How to Grieve" in the literary journal, The Writing Disorder.

Janelle Wisehart, Tampa, Florida, is a painter. In her art, she spins ambiguous narratives starring a cast of characters including cartoon creatures, cultural stereotypes and anthropomorphic objects living in small town Georgia. Wisehart's eccentric images are based on both real and imagined experiences and present a contemporary mashup of the dark humor, irony, and grotesquery often featured in Southern Gothic literature.She is currently active in making and showing her art. Since 2006, she has participated in twenty-nine exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, Studio Visit.

Oni Woods, Nashville, Tennessee, describes herself as a "multipotentialite," having multiple passions and being multitalented. She has studied and worked in many disciplines: theatre, psychology, biology, education, advertising, and philosophy. She founded Living Art, NFP in 2005, a performing arts and education non-profit organization working to inspire and uplift underserved communities. Poetry is Woods' first voice and love, and her wordsmithing is woven into the very fabric of her being. Her book, 19 Poems, has recently been released.

Mobius, Inc. Cambridge Massachusetts, is a nonprofit artist-run organization which has presented an exceptional range of visual, performance and multi-media art for 39 years. Constructing art initiatives outside accepted frameworks and encouraging animated discussions with the public are fundamental to Mobius. It has long been committed to creating artist-exchange projects bringing artists from different geographic regions to work together. Mobius has presented work involving thousands of artists ever since its inception and is recognized as one of the seminal alternative artist-run organizations in the United States.

About the Tanne Foundation

The Tanne Foundation was founded by an artist in order to enrich the artistic experience and broaden horizons for artists and audiences alike. The foundation's primary interest is in the support of individual artists. Led by a board comprised of a majority of artists, the foundation is guided by the philosophy that in the creation of art, however unrecognized or obscure the voice, the sound may be extraordinary and it is vital that it be heard.

Since its inception the foundation has made awards to ninety-three artists and nine organizations in recognition of their outstanding achievements in a variety of fields in the visual and performing arts, including performance art, painting, poetry, music, theater, and dance. Nominations for awards are made by the trustees of the Tanne Foundation. The foundation does not accept unsolicited requests.