2011 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Fellows Announced

Charlotte Street Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of its 2011 Visual Artist Awards Fellows: Ricky Allman, Andy Brayman and Peggy Noland. Selected by a curatorial panel of Awards Advisors following studio visits with ten semi-finalists, these three Kansas City based artists will receive unrestricted cash grants of $10,000 each. Their work will be featured in the 2011 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards Exhibition at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, opening September 2011.

Charlotte Street Foundation has now recognized 74 Kansas City based visual artists with Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards distributed annually since 1997, totaling $482,500. In addition, Charlotte Street launched a parallel program of Awards to Generative Performing Artists in 2008, with a total of $53,000 now distributed to 9 artists through that program. These Awards aim to recognize achievement and promise, and to foster continued artistic and professional development. In so doing, they seek to distinguish Kansas City as a place that values individual artists, and to enhance its desirability as a place for artists to live and work.

About the artists:

Ricky Allman
Born and raised in Utah, Ricky Allman is a painter whose work reflects the geographical environment, mountainous landscapes, and Mormon architecture of his upbringing. Currently an assistant professor of painting and drawing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Allman's most recent paintings incorporate Modernist architectural structures as well as areas of gestural painting and exuberant color, which he says relate to his recent break from Mormonism and a new found sense of freedom, possibility, and grounding in logic and science.

Allman received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art (Boston, MA) in 2005 and his MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) in 2007. His work has been presented in solo exhibits at venues including the David B Smith Gallery (Denver, CO), Byron Cohen Gallery (Kansas City, MO), Raid FC (Los Angeles, CA), Colon Group Gallery (Boston, MA), Globe Institute Gallery (New York, NY), Cowan Gallery (Orem, UT), Minnesota State University (Mankato, MN), and Kansas University (Lawrence, KS), as well as in group shows at spaces including Allen Project (New York, NY), Chashama (New York, NY), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Milo Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Aqua Art Miami, the Cracow Screen Festival in Krakow, Poland and the Mary Ward House in London, UK. Visit www.rickyallman.com for more information.

Andy Brayman's work merges conceptual art and functional ceramics, with projects ranging from sculptural slip-casted and decaled plates, cups and vases, to a current project in which he is using a centrifuge to transform brick and cinder block fragments from the town of Greensburg, Kansas, destroyed in 2007 by a tornado, into dust from which he is creating glazes for pieces that will ultimately go back to Greensburg. A Kansas City native, Andy Brayman received his BFA in Ceramics from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and his MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University (Alfred, NY). He was a visiting professor of ceramics at Bennington College (Bennington, VT) 2003-2005, then moved back to Kansas City to establish the Matter Factory in Kansas City, KS, which serves as studio, laboratory, and launch pad for a range of projects, including collaborations with other artists.

Brayman's recent exhibitions include a two person show at the Harvey Meadows Gallery in Aspen, CO; curated group exhibitions including Convergence: Pottery from Studio and Factory at the Philadelphia Art Alliance (Philadelphia, PA), Exquisite Pots: Six Degrees of Collaboration at Perkins Center for the Arts (Collingswood, NJ), and Vesigual Gills at Butcher Block (Louisville, KY); and Who Lives in Greenwich Village, a collaboration with Ayumi Horie at Jane Hartsook Gallery (New York, NY). In addition, his Artstream Nomadic Gallery has toured extensively. Brayman has served as a visiting artist/ panelist at numerous colleges and universities, most recently Alfred University (2010), Michigan State University (2010), Montgomery County Community College (2010) and the University of Kansas (2009). Published articles about his work include "Making the Most of the Margins," American Craft (2009), and "The New Factory," Ceramics Monthly, (February, 2009). Visit www.matterfactory.com for more.

Peggy Noland is an artist and fashion designer, whose shop, Peggy Noland Kansas City, located on West 18th Street in Kansas City's Crossroads Arts District, serves as the home base for her international career as well as a site for regularly changing installations. Noland is known for her use of bright colors and patterns, full-body leotards, a line of baby clothes made for adults, and other apparel that questions ideas of normality and encourages risk taking. Her designs have been worn by musicians including Lovefoxx, Tilly and the Wall, Fischerspooner, Chicks on Speed, and The Ssion, led by her frequent collaborator Cody Critcheloe, and have appeared in fashion and music magazines including WWD, Elle, Elle Japan, Dazed and Confused, Vogue, British Vogue, Nylon, Nylon Japan, Spin, and Rolling Stone, as well as fashion blogs, like TeenVogue and StyleBubble. Noland has been a teacher in the Fiber Department at the Kansas City Art Institute since 2008.

From Independence, Missouri, Noland majored in Religious Studies at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, then worked as a production manager for a New Delhi clothing company in 2006 prior to opening Peggy Noland Kansas City at age 23. She is the recipient of a Mastermind Award from The Pitch and a Lighton International Artist Exchange Program travel grant, which provided support for her to open a pop up boutique in Berlin. Visit www.peggynoland.com for more.

Selection Process:
A rotating panel of Awards Advisors is responsible for selecting Charlotte Street Foundation Awards Fellows each year. The 2011 committee included: Michael Rooks, Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Kris Kuramitsu, independent curator based in Los Angeles; Stacy Switzer, Artistic Director, Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO; Chris Cook, Director/Curator, Salina Art Center, Salina, KS; and Jeremy Mikolajczak, Gallery Director/Curator, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO.

This year, for the first time, Charlotte Street Foundation issued an open call for applications for the Awards, inviting artists living in the five county Kansas City Metro area to apply. (Previously, a nominations-only process was employed.) From 108 applicants, the Awards Advisors narrowed through a two-phased process to 10 artists with whom they conducted in-person studio visits in Kansas City in early April. From this pool of 10, the final recipients were selected.

A non-profit organization, Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF) supports and recognizes outstanding artists in Kansas City; presents, promotes, enhances, and encourages the visual and performing arts; and fosters economic development in the urban core of Kansas City, Mo. On all levels, CSF places artists at the center of its mission and has built an infrastructure that depends on and reflects their involvement. As a result, CSF continually evolves in response to artist input and in relation to the city's larger cultural ecosystem. For more about Charlotte Street Foundation and its activities, visit www.charlottestreet.org.

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