Fellowship Recipients 2011-12

AIMEE BURG

Aimee Burg received her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MFA from Yale, where she received the George R. Bunker Award for excellence in the Sculpture department. She was also one of eight American MFA students to be chosen for the USA/MFA exhibition in Israel's leading graduate art school, Bezalel, promoting conversation in art between cultures. This exchange has influenced her current project curating an Israeli and American artist collaboration, opening in Sunset Park in April, 2011.

www.aimeeburg.com

KATHERINE TZU-IAN MANN

Katherine Tzu-lan Mann received her BA from Brown University and MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant to Taiwan and the Toby Devan Lewis fellowship. She has participated as an artist in residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Sky Dayton, Vermont Studio Center, Salzburg Kunstlerhaus, Triangle Workshop and Anderson Ranch Art Center residencies, and will take part in the Bemis Center residency program in 2012. Mann is currently an instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

www.katherinemann.net

RÉGINE ROMAIN

Régine Romain is a photographer of Haitian descent, who fuses her interests in travel and culture to explore both spiritual and tangible worlds. She is also a writer, performer and educator who teaches photography, poetry, multi-media studies and global history, seeking to stimulate artistic expression, critical inquiry and social activism in her students. Régine is the Founder and Director the Urban PhotoPoets project and the Brooklyn Photo Salon. She received her Bachelor of Science in International Studies from Bowie State University and in 2008 acquired a Masters in Photography & Urban Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London.

www.regineromain.com

BAN GEUL HAN

Bang Geul Han was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. Han earned an MFA in Electronic Integrated Art from the New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University in Alfred, NY and BFA in Painting from the Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea. Based in US since 2003, she usually works on an interactive and participatory project in many different media from watercolor to computer programming. She is Assistant Professor for the Digital Arts and Sciences Program at Clarkson University and divides her time between Brooklyn and Potsdam, New York, a small town north of adirondack mountains.

www.whatbunny.org

EINAT IMBER

Einat Imber (born 1979, Israel) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Although her practice is based in an urban environment, it is closely related to nature. In 2008, a fellowship from the Joan Mitchell Foundation allowed her to spend 4 weeks as artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. She returned to the city with a U-haul full of driftwood. Other materials for her work are sourced from hardware stores, the 99¢ store, bait and tackle shops, the fabric district or the McMaster catalogue. Her work has been included in numerous group shows in and around New York City. Einat is a 2011 A.I.R Gallery fellowship recipient and her solo show “Continental Drift” will be on view at the gallery in 2012. She received her BFA from the Cooper Union and lessons for a lifetime from its sculpture shop.

www.einatimber.com

ANNIE EWASKIO

Annie Ewaskio's paintings are a real attempt to re-experience highly personal moments within a globalized, industrialized environment. She ends up creating situations that feel more truthful to her than reality. The images she creates, based loosely on a painterly method of near-collage, make up some pastiche of real and imagined moments. Their myriad dimensions allow me to come full-circle in my analysis of our environment. Paint makes this possible, and for this I feel celebratory about the material. It makes complete sense to her in a way that the world cannot.

www.annieewaskio.com

Fellowship Recipients 2010-11

JIYOON KOO

Jiyoon Koo is an artist based in Seoul, South Korea. Before she begins a new piece, she spends time accumulating energy which is not only physical but also emotional and critical thoughts. Her paintings are a visual representation of pent-up boredom and anxiety.

www.jihaekoo.com

JULIANA CERQUEIRA LEITE

Juliana Cerqueira Leite is a Chicago-born Brazilian artist currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her various works of sculpture, drawing, video and photography have been exhibited internationally. Her work endeavors to uncover the connections between the body as form, process, extension, and vessel.

www.julianacerqueiraleite.com

MEGHAN MCINNIS

Meghan McInnis is an Atlanta based artist. Through photography she explores the inter-connection of social and physical transition, mnemonic resonance, and parallel experience. As part of an ongoing investigation of transitional space, she have photographed the stage areas in underground hardcore punk shows for the past two years.

http://meghanmcinnis.com/

ANNE PERCOCO

Anne Percoco lives and works in Jersey City. She is interested in relationships between people and landscapes. Usually she starts with a site or a material.  She spends as much time researching, exploring, and gathering materials as I do making. Every material has unique formal properties, as well as historical, cultural, and environmental resonances. Because of this focus on materiality, her work is often tactile and immediate, with a sensitivity to texture. She is interested in doing public and site-specific projects as well as gallery-based work. She learns different things from each way of working.

www.annepercoco.com

SAM VERNON

Sam Vernon graduated from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2009 with an award for Excellence in Drawing. Her drawings are derived from historical fiction. A congregation of bodies dancing, sleeping, and weeping that haunt her dreams.

www.samvernon.com

ELISABETH WATERSON

Elisabeth Waterson creates landscapes exploring a variety of encounters between the man-made world and natural space. By utilizing the human perspective on our world, which is the essence of traditional landscape painting, she illuminates the mixture of harmony and discord that surrounds us today.

www.elisabethpaints.com

Fellowship Recipients 2009-10

DAMALI ABRAMS

SUZANNE BROUGHEL

JEE HWANG

KIRA GREENE

KEUN YOUNG PARK

ANNETTE RUSIN

Annette Rusin is a Brooklyn, New York based artist with a studio in DUMBO. She is a 2009-2010 A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship recipient whose site-specific, solo show Road Work took place at A.I.R. in September-October 2010. In conjuction with Road Work, Rusin created an outdoor, neighborhood “intervention” project during the DUMBO Arts Festival. Her work was also included in A.I.R. Gallery’s 8th Annual Biennial curated by Lilly Wei. Twenty drawings from her Cosmetic Dreams Series were exhibited at the 2009 International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale in Korea. Rusin works with unorthodox drawing tools and manipulates wall surface layers to explore ritual, vanity and conformity in the man-made, ready-made world. Rusin is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (Bachelor of Architecture) and Hunter College (MFA, Painting). She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell and Millay and is an Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts grant recipient. http://www.annetterusin.com

Fellowship Recipients 2008-09

NIVI ALROY

Nivi Alroy's work examines the ever-changing relationship between inner and outer spaces. She explores the tension between the intimacy of the private domain – whether the human body or the domestic environment – and the intrusive forces that threatening to alter it. The border of the body and the space around it, the borders of the interior or even of the paper and sculpture itself erupt, exposing an intimate moment. In the world she thrives to create, constant transformation and scale is the founding force. Gravity goes berserk, doors transform into chairs, a watchdog becomes a threatening monster and bodies themselves appear to erupt. The public space infiltrates the private space and boundaries, which are often considered solid and sacred, are challenged. She is concerned with the community or individual’s survival in the face of disturbed domesticity. She often creates biota-based sculptural forms that can be described as architectural organisms. She draws the inspiration for these microenvironments from various microbiological phenomena such as programmed cell death and Fruiting Bodies, from Jewish-Israeli history and culture and from the charged socio- geographical climate of the region. She is fascinated by the prospects of describing motion and time based phenomena, in still and spatial forms. On a formal level, she tends to incorporate traditional techniques, such as etching, wood relief and ceramics into found objects and, contemporary exploring and up to date means. Lately, she has been incorporating animated video pieces into her sculptures, wood relief work sculptures and installations, by embedding video monitors into her artwork.

www.nivialroy.com

MONICA CARRIER

As a child staring at her home's wallpaper pattern, Monica Carrier saw all kinds of creatures emerge from within the abstract arabesque shapes. She plays a similar visual game, calling upon her subconscious, to make her drawings. She first creates abstract patterns or organic shapes. The next rule of the game is that she must draw whatever it is that she sees in the forms no matter how embarrassing or ridiculous it seems. The results are sometimes huge, ornate drawings flowing from the walls, full of microcosms depicting anything from scenes of war to animalistic deities; sometimes just simple portraits appear.

www.monicacarrier.com

ARI TABEI

www.aricoco.com

ELENA WEN

www.elenawen.com

JENNIFER WILLIAMS

www.jennifer-williams.com

JENNIFER WROBLEWSKI

Jennifer Wroblewski specializes in large-scale drawing and drawing installation projects. Her interests include drawing as performance and the relationship between the expressive and calligraphic marks, the connections (and disconnects) between drawing and writing. www.jenniferwroblewski.com

Fellowship Recipients 2007-08

Katherine Dolgy Ludwig has had a well-known figurative practice, with an international list of collectors of multiple pieces. At the beginning of the 2007 A.I.R. Fellowship, she was invited by the National Arts Club Gramercy Park to show forty of her Preteen portraits, going on to win their annual prize for her abstract Word painting; she performance/paints organizing public projects working in video onstage with musicians; she is currently actively involved in live painting projects throughout New York, including _FaithPainting_ portraying Brooklyn Hindu, Muslim, Baptist Christian, and Othodox Jewish faith groups, brought together to meet at the exhibit. Compared to Dianne Arbus, Keith Haring, and Jeremy Deller, her work has been called New Populism, making paintings as reportage onsite. In communities diverse as London Southwark Police, Vegas Playboy Bunnies, Manhattan Gifted Schoolchildren, and Toronto Beach Nudists, the artist looks for the diversity of individualism inside mis-stereotyped subjects.
Born in Toronto and educated in London, the artist's New York work is made in her studios in Brooklyn and Hell's Kitchen
katherine.dolgy@utoronto.ca
www.katherinedolgyludwig.com

Hanna Sandin graduated from RISD in 2003 with a BFA in Glass. In 2005, she received the Emerging Artists Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park, and participated in the fellowship exhibition for which she made two large site-generated stalagmite formations. The artist has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including, “Another Place” at NurtureART in 2005 and “Preternatural Selection,” at MCLA51 gallery in North Adams, MA. Last year she was a recipient of the 2007-2208 A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship.
hanna.sandin@oldfarmlane.com

Anita Ragusa was born in 1977 in Sarajevo, Bosnia. She received her BFA in Painting from The Cooper Union School of Art, New York in 2004.
I am very drawn to elaborate story telling and two of my favorite books are A rebours (Against Nature), by J. K. Hysmans and The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. The intricate characters and imagery of these books are a constant source of inspiration. For me they are like visual poems and I find myself drawn to the material time and time again.
anitaragusa@gmail.com
www.anitaragusa.uber.com

Barbara Hatfield received her MFA from Parsons, The New School for Design, in New York, NY.
“Leave a little emptiness between the distant and the near.”—Wang Wei
These words by the eighth century poet and painter Wang Wei are both inspiration and instruction. Coming to understand emptiness as an active, lively energy has been a wonderful journey and a liberating discovery. It has helped me develop a rich appreciation for discipline and process and for continuing to dedicate the energy necessary to sustain my studio practice. Each mark matters. The energy in each mark matters. The spaces in between matter.
bhfield27@hotmail.com

Kharis Kennedy has been working as a studio artist since 1999. Although her primary background is in painting, much of her work is multi-media as her chief interests are always conceptual in nature.
Most recently, she and long time collaborator Rick McIntire premiered two evening length presentations of Yamabushi + Spielerfrau, a multi-disciplinary performance inspired by the possibilities of the random juxtaposition of their silent film Yamabushi with live music performed by Spielerfrau. In Fall 2008, Kennedy, McIntire, and dance choreographer Bryon Carr will present Dr. M. vs. Capt. R., a collaborative piece incorporating dance, projected images, recorded music, and sculptural costuming. These 4 pieces will be put together for the first time on the occasion of the performance, again allowing for the emergence of chance relationships.
khariskennedy@hotmail.com
Kharis Online

Lauren Simkin Berke lives and works in Brookyn, NY. Lauren attended Cornell University, receiving a B.A. in anthropology and the The School of Visual Arts, receiving an M.F.A. in illustration as visual essay. Lauren is represented by Riley Illustration.
laurenberke@gmail.com
www.simkinberke.com

Fellowship Recipients 2006-07

Megan Biddle received her M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been exhibited domestically and internationally at establishments as diverse as The Brick Theater, The 700IS Experimental Film Festival in Iceland, and Galerie VSUP in Prague. Biddle is currently an artist in residence at the BCAT/Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn. www.meganbiddle.com

Stephanie Lempert was born in Dallas, Texas and received her B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work concentrates on analyzing various systems of communication and exists in a wide variety of media including sculpture, photography and video. Her work has been exhibited and collected domestically and internationally at establishments such as A.I.R. Gallery, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Armory Show, Lmak Projects, Weisspollack Gallery, Stella Art Gallery, The Moscow World Fine Art Fair, Art Basel Miami and The 2006 New York Video Festival. Lempert is represented by The Claire Oliver Gallery. www.stephanielempert.com

Brynna Tucker (b. 1977) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She studied Sculpture with a minor in Art History at the University of Massachusetts in North Dartmouth (BFA, 1999) and studied Fine Arts and Art History at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY (MFA/MS 2001). Her current project is called Cracks in the Concrete Jungle and is a series of site-specific works throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Her recent exhibitions include the w25thbtwn10thand11th at A.I.R. Gallery, Entropy, Interrupted at a Project Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY; Confluence at Open Ground Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; and Threat at Tribes Gallery in Manhattan, NY. Her curatorial projects include Artists in Contested Spaces, at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and Found Wanting at Gallery MC in Manhattan, NY. She was also a finalist for the Lori Ledis Memorial Award, Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently an active member of both the Exhibitionists Women's Art Salon and Open Ground art collectives. www.brynnatucker.com

Betsy Alwin
Margarida Correia www.margaridacorreia.com

Fellowship Recipients 2005-06

Since receiving her MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2003, Sarah Blackwelder has been developing a series of oil portraits showing the dark side of children’s toys. On this series, Sarah was awarded a fellowship at A.I.R. Gallery in Chelsea where she had her first solo show in June, 2006. In addition to A.I.R., Sarah has exhibited in various galleries in and around New York City including Chashama, the Society of Illustrator’s Guild Hall, Space Station and Micro Museum in Brooklyn. Sarah was a finalist in RSVP’s Dream competition and has participated in other juried shows including Schoharie Art Council’s National Small Works Exhibition, the Real Art Ways Slide Slam, and Manifest II at the White Studio Gallery. Sarah currently works and paints in Brooklyn.www.sarablackwelder.com

A Korean Native, Soyeon Cho received M.F.A.s from both Seoul National University and School of Visual Arts. She currently resides in New York and has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally including exhibitions at the Hsin-Chu International Glass Art Festival in Taiwan, Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice, Carriage House at the Islip Museum and the exhibition Oltre Lilith in Frascati, Italy. She has received numerous residencies and awards including a fellowship at A.I.R., residency at PS 122 and her current residency at the Henry Street Settlement.

Christine Gedeon is a Syrian-born, New York based artist who has exhibited at: The DIVA Fair Miami Beach, 2006, The New Art Center, and Vertex List in Williamsburg, among others. Her blueprint drawings, which were shown in the 7th Biennial Exhibition at A.I.R., curated by Connie Butler, had been reviewed in Art in America. Gedeon is currently working on a new body of work creating abstracted aerial landscape drawings with a sewing machine. She received her B.A. from SUNY New Paltz.www.christinegedeon.com

Enid Crow is a photographer living in Brooklyn. She has had solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery, Holocene (Portland, OR), Grace University (Iowa), and the Lockhart Gallery (Geneseo, NY). She is a member of the Department of Craft, a NYC-based arts and craft collective, and a singer in the Vivian Girls Experience, a Henry Darger tribute band. www.enidcrow.com

Fay Ku received her M.F.A. in Studio Art and M.S. in Art History from Pratt Institute. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and has had solo exhibitions at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, Metaphor Contemporary Gallery, in Brooklyn, NY, and, of course, A.I.R. Gallery. She has attended residencies at Weir Farm Art Center and AAI Lower East Side Rotating Studio Program. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Diane Meyer has had solo exhibitions at the AIR Gallery in New York and the Society for Contemporary Photography in Kansas City. Additionally, her work has been exhibited in numerous group shows including those at Lennox Contemporary, Toronto; Jen Bekman Gallery, NYC; Jessica Murray Projects, NYC; Spaces Gallery, Cleveland; the Bronx Museum, NYC; Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin and Rotunda Gallery, NYC. She has had residencies with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Smack Mellon, and the CUE Art Foundation. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University and an artist in residence at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica.www.dianemeyer.net Pattie Lee Becker's work resides in the complex space that connects humans with their physical and psychological landscape. Personal stories are transformed into imaginative invention. Color and pattern narrate; images conjure both the familiar and the fantastic.

Raised in the great Midwest, Pattie Lee spent her childhood surrounded by prairie and open sky. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, she moved her studio to Brooklyn, NY, where she spent a decade developing her work before relocating to the Rocky Mountains. Pattie Lee holds an MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts and has been awarded numerous solo shows, residencies and fellowships.
http://www.pattieleebecker.com Marni Horwitz www.marnihorwitz.com Jinnine Pak

Fellowship Recipients Before 2005

Diyan Achjadi was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and received a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, New York (1993 ) and an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal (2002). Her installation and print works have been exhibited in the US and Canada most recently in solo shows at Alternator Gallery (Kelowna, 2006) and Access Artist Run Centre (Vancouver, 2006) as well as in group exhibitions at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (2005), Malaspina Printmakers Gallery (Vancouver, 2007) and Romo Gallery (Atlanta, 2007). Her short animated videos are distributed by Groupe Intervention Video (Montreal) and have been screened across North America and Europe, including at the International Festival of Films on Art (Montreal, 2005) and Les Instants Videos des Manosque (France, 2003). In 2007 she participated in the Imaginary Places thematic residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Print Media at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, Canada.www.achdiyan.com

Angie Eng is a media artist who works in video, installation and time-based performance. Her work has been performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Lincoln Center Video Festival, The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute and Roulette Intermedium. Her videos have been included in digital art festivals in the US and international venues in Cuba, Greece, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Canada. She has received grants and commissions: New Museum of Radio and Performing Arts, Harvestworks, Art In General, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation and Experimental TV Center. She received an Eyebeam Residency to make a project about privacy in urban areas: Ho Chi Minh City and New York City.www.angieeng.com

Hye-Kyung Kim is originally from Seoul, Korea. She received her MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York and MFA/BFA from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea. She has had solo exhibitions at A.I.R. Gallery, New York, Batanggol Gallery, Seoul, Korea and Chung-Nam Gallery, Seoul, Korea. She has also participated in group exhibitions both in New York City and Seoul, Korea. Hye-Kyung was awarded a fellowship at A.I.R. Gallery, NY, and her work was featured in Indwelling:Living in a female Body 2007(Great Hall at The Cooper Union);The 5th Biennial Exhibition (A.I.R. Gallery, NY); The 26th Small Works Exhibition (80 Washington Square East Gallery) and New American Painting.www.hyekyungkim.net

Sheila Manion Artz is a multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the US, Europe and Asia. She has received her MFA in Printmaking from The City College of New York and her BFA, in sculpture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Sheila has taught at NYU, City College of NY and is currently in the Visual Presentation & Exhibition Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has a working creative studio in Long Island City and lives with her husband, Manhee Bak and infant son, Baye Manion Bak in Queens, NY.

Debra Hampton www.debra-hampton.com
Juri Kim
Tenesh Webber www.teneshwebber.com
Fay Torres Yap www.ftyap.com
Elizabeth Zechel