The University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Department of Art and Art History and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha announced last Fall the inauguration of the Bemis Center Residency Prize for graduates from the UNL Master of Fine Arts program. The Residency Prize will be awarded annually to an outstanding MFA student graduating from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. All third-year MFA students are eligible to apply for the Residency Prize. UNL art and art history faculty will nominate students for consideration; the Bemis Center will determine the recipient.
T.J. Edwards, who graduated with his M.F.A. in May in ceramics, is the first recipient of the residency. Born in Brigham City, Utah, Edwards served as an apprentice to professor emeritus Thanos A. Johnson in Marble, Colo., following his senior year of high school. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech University. He received a Windgate Fellowship and used the award to travel to Jingdezhen, China, as an artist-in-residence in 2009. The following year he was awarded a Baden-Württemberg Stipend for Vocationally Qualified People to participate in an internship program in Germany. His work has been exhibited at 15 exhibitions during his time at UNL, including 10 that were international in scale. He was recently selected as an Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly and was featured in their international publication this May.
The Residency Prize follows the same guidelines as the Bemis Center’s internationally-recognized Artist-in-Residence program, which provides critical time and support to outstanding artists working at the cutting-edge of contemporary practice. In a typical year, the Bemis Center can accept fewer than two percent of applicants to its residency program.
“The Bemis Center, for all of its international success, has always been a Nebraska institution,” said Bemis Center Executive Director Adam Price, “It is therefore a great pleasure for myself, our staff, and the Board of Trustees to be able to demonstrate our support for emerging Nebraska artists by offering this new Residency Prize each year to an MFA graduate from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.”
UNL Assistant Professor of Practice in Art History Marissa Vigneault said, “We are incredibly fortunate to have the Bemis, an internationally recognized contemporary art center, only an hour from UNL’s campus, and our hope is that the establishment of the Residency Prize will further cement the connection between these two respected institutions. Both the Bemis Center and UNL support contemporary working artists and the Residency Prize is evidence of a continuing commitment to fostering creative production within the field. We offer our tremendous thanks to the Bemis for making this generous prize possible and for recognizing the outstanding capabilities and future potential of our graduate students.”
The recipient of the Residency Prize is expected to join the Bemis Center program within 12 months of selection.
For more information, visit http://go.unl.edu/ic4x.