Local Artists Receive California Arts Council Awards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2003
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Local Artists Receive California Arts Council Awards
The California Arts Council recently selected two local artists as recipients of the 2002-03 Artist Fellowship Award for the Visual Arts. Michael Bishop and Sheri Simons, professors in the Department of Art and Art History at California State University, Chico, are part of a diverse group of 26 honored California artists.
The basis for selection is at least 10 years of professional experience and artistic excellence. The artists in the visual arts include photographers, printmakers, painters and sculptors. Bishop and Simons, both sculptors, received their awards in the Three Dimension Art category. Each artist will receive $4,567.
Simons creates large multimedia works out of common materials, which she calls “pedestrian miracles.” She attempts to engage the viewer on multiple levels, attempting to take them beyond an intellectual and emotional response to what she calls a “body”’ response (change of posture, for example). “The body’s response is honest, and its wisdom is commonly overlooked,” she said.
Simons’ public works have been commissioned by Miami University, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and Kings County Arts Commission. She is a past recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship and the Michigan Council for the Arts Artist-Apprenticeship.
Bishop works with easily recognizable objects. He describes his work as “rooted in hard work and preciseness …carefully built and arranged to function as deliberately composed scenarios.”
Bishop’s 40-year exhibition and award record includes exhibits in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Brussels, Belgium. His work is in both private and public collections including Triton in Santa Clara and the Rene and Veronica di Rosa Foundation in Napa.
Arts Council chair Barbara George referred to the artists as “among the best natural resources in California.” Speaking for the council, she said, “The Arts Council recognizes the enormous value that arts and culture have in our daily lives. By supporting these creative individuals, we are able to validate their artistic vision and further encourage their imaginations to make great things happen in California.”
The CAC Artist Fellowship program was established in 1987. Fellowships, awarded annually, rotate among four disciplines: visual arts, performing arts, media arts and new genre and literature.
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