Tanne Foundation 2019 Artist Awards Announced

Tanne Foundation Announces Awards to Artists This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Tanne Foundation, a family-founded artist-run organization that provides unrestricted funding for gifted individual artists. The award acknowledges the remarkable dedication and creativity of artists in all disciplines and from all sections of the country, and has pioneered support for artists with limited resources at critical stages in their art making. The testimonials of previous recipients, as seen on the Tanne Foundation website, confirm how the recognition and support are crucial to their sustained creativity.

This year the Tanne Foundation awards totaling $70,500, honor eight artists in recognition of their artistic achievements, as well as two artist-run organizations which present bold and courageous programming. 2019 Tanne Award Recipients

Banning Bouldin, Nashville, TN, is a choreographer, educator, director, and producer. She received her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 2002, and spent the next decade working internationally with some of her field's most renowned contemporary dance companies throughout Europe and North America. In 2012, Banning returned to Nashville, Tennessee, and formed New Dialect: a nonprofit contemporary dance collective that offers performances, professional development for artists, and outreach to diverse communities.

Meredith Gordon, Decatur, GA, is an artist working with live performance, clowning, theater, and music. He is inspired by Motown era soul music, Buster Keaton, and the circus, and uses clowning to comment on the absurdity of our experiences. As a clown, he expands our perception of what is possible, and focuses on the artistic opportunity and the obligation to revive hope. He worked with the Big Apple Circus Clown Care, the world's first professional medical clowning organization that brought clowning and circus to hospitalized children. He is one of the founding members of Humorology Atlanta!, and worked with Cirque de Monde, an outreach program of Cirque du Soleil that promoted circus arts as a means of intervention with at-risk youth.

Heather Kapplow, Allston, MA, is a self-trained conceptual artist based in the United States. Kapplow creates engagement experiences that elicit unexpected intimacies using objects, alternative interpretations of existing environments, installation, performance, writing, audio, and video. Kapplow's work has received government and private grants, and has been included in galleries, film, and performance festivals in the US and internationally.

Stratton McCrady, Saco, ME, is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in photography. Centered in the performing arts, McCrady's photos study the myriad complexities of people, and their cravings for self-expression. In every way, his portrait-making process promotes interactions with his subjects, embracing open expressions of gender, sexuality, advocacy, and shared control of power dynamics. His portrait project titled, Acting Out; Performances, Debaucheries, and Lies, explores the world of contemporary Burlesque. He has exhibited work at the Stove Factory gallery in Charlestown, MA, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, ME, and at Ube Art in Berkeley, CA.

Roberto Marquez, Tampa, FL, is a visual artist who combines painting, drawing, and ceramics to make works that are funny, and funky with irreverent examinations of serious topics such as art history, social media, race and identity. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Marquez draws on his personal experience to explore cultural misunderstandings and what he calls 'colonized behaviors. 'His confetti-colored porcelain creations use irony and dark humor to present a kind of adolescent awkwardness and isolation as experiences that transcend ethnicity, yet remain personal. Marquez earned his MFA at the University of South Florida and has exhibited extensively in Puerto Rico and the USA.

Laura Milkins, Tucson, AZ, is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores vulnerability, intimacy, and cultural norms, using online-interactive performance, video, drawing, painting, and live radio/podcasting. Her current project, Of Birds and Men, is a series of 26 portraits of men in power who have been accused of sexual misconduct. Each man is accompanied by an exquisitely-drawn bird who shares his first initial. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S. and in France. Milkins has received grants, awards, and international recognition for her work, including a Fulbright award to travel and work in Mexico City.

Daniel Richardson, Altadena, CA, is a composer/musician who began playing the saxophone while in elementary school at the age of ten. He then went on to attend the renowned Berklee College of Music. He toured with the Grammy winning artist Solange Knowles in venues such as the Sydney Opera House, Hollywood Bowl and the F.Y.F festival. Daniel has been extremely active in education and music mentoring, and is currently serving as the instrumental ensemble director at the Barnhart School in Arcadia, CA.

Sinclair, Madison, TN, is a songwriter, performer and audio producer. Diverse as her career has been, within the last 2 years she has been solely focused on her career as a solo artist. Sinclair is currently writing and recording Ok Preacher's Kid. The music in her current work reflects her religious upbringing and passion for human rights. In 2018, Sinclair toured with Daughtry, and opened for Kacey Musgraves. She had releases playlisted on Spotify's New Music Friday in the USA, Norway, Germany, Sweden, and Canada. Sinclair maintains a rigorous international touring schedule, while continuing her studio work as a musician and songwriter.

DFBRL8R [also known as Defibrillator Gallery or dfb] Chicago, IL, was formed in 2010 as a platform for Performance Art. Contextualizing performance within the realm of visual art, DFBRL8R embraces those who look to the body in concert and conversation with time, space, object, nature, architecture, or society. Bold and courageous programming aims to provoke thought and stimulate discourse surrounding under-represented voices and time-based practices. Working with both established and emerging artists, DFBRL8R is dedicated to fostering local makers while invigorating Chicago with artists of exceptional calibre from around the world. Energetically building community and fostering discourse, DFBRL8R raises awareness, appreciation, and respect for the medium of Performance Art.

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