Seattle Art Museum announces Jenny Heishman as 2011 Betty Bowen award winner

SuttonBeresCuller, Ties That Bind. Custom made polypropylene ratchet straps, 40’ x 80’ x 40’.

The Betty Bowen Committee announced that Jenny Heishman is the winner of the 2011 Betty Bowen Award. The award comes with an unrestricted cash prize of $15,000. In addition a selection of Heishman’s work will be on view at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) beginning October 20, 2011. The Betty Bowen Committee, chaired by Gary Glant and administered through SAM, has selected local artists to win cash prizes for 33 years.

SuttonBeresCuller (SBC) was awarded the Kayla Skinner Special Recognition Award in the amount of $2,500 and Lisa Liedgren was selected to receive the PONCHO Special Recognition award, also in the amount of $2,500. Five finalists, including Michael Endo and Marc Roder, chosen from a pool of 529 applicants from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, competed for the $20,000 in awards.

Award Ceremony

Heishman, SBC and Liedgren will receive their awards and discuss their work at a public ceremony on Thursday, October 20 from 6-7 pm in the Plestcheeff Auditorium at SAM Downtown. A public reception will follow from 7-8 pm in SAM’s Simons Board Room. Both the ceremony and reception are free and open to the public.

Jenny Heishman (American, born 1971) received an MFA from Ohio State University in 1998. With a practice akin to an alchemist, Heishman creates approachable objects that elicit misunderstanding and require a shift in perspective. Using a variety of run-of-the-mill materials including aluminum foil, ceramic tiles, paper, tape, fabric, and Styrofoam, Heishman alters the way we experience the use of these humble items. Encountering her works on paper and in sculpture, one recognizes her misuse of material and her interest in broken patterns, faux surfaces, and optical illusions. Heishman has said: “I’m curious about the fissure, the disturbance that the experience of being with these works creates in the body, and what happens in the oscillation between knowing and not knowing.” Her work encourages us to find pleasure in the act of looking and her playful gestures reward us with multiple visual surprises.

She was an Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, FL in 2000; an Emerging Artist in Residence at the Pilchuck School of Glass, Stanwood, WA in 2005, and an Artist in Residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT in 2006. Notable awards include 2012 Commission for Vulcan Inc., sculpture for entrance to building, Seattle, WA; 2010 Commission for Vulcan Inc., sculpture for outdoor Pocket Park, Seattle, WA; 2010 Grant Recipient, CityArtist Project, Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Seattle, WA; 2009 PONCHO Special Recognition Award Recipient, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; 2008 Public Art Commission, Water Mover, City of Seattle, A.B.Ernst Park, Seattle, WA; 2006 Artist Trust/WA State Arts Commission Fellowship Grant, Seattle, WA; Grant for Special Projects, King County 4 Culture, Seattle, WA; 2006 Finalist, Betty Bowen Award; 2005 Grant for Artist Projects Recipient, Artist Trust, Seattle, WA; 2004 Finalist, Creative Capital Visual Arts Grant.

Recent solo shows include an upcoming solo project at Prole Drift, Seattle, WA (opens October 14); Snaker Charmer, Vignettes, Seattle, WA in 2011; Three Ways of Looking at a Hat Trick, Violet Strays, on-line venue; 2010 Summer in the Park, Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Pak, Seattle, WA; Complexions, Howard House, Seattle, WA in 2007. Group exhibitions include An Empty Vase, Prole Drift, Seattle, WA (currently on view until October 9); Every Distance is Not Near, Sheppard Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, NV in 2010; Shelf, the 5th Whitstable Biennale 2010, United Kingdom; and Second Peoples, The Helm, Tacoma, WA in 2009. She is a Bainbridge Island, WA resident and works in Seattle.

SuttonBeresCuller is a dynamic collaborative of three artists that includes John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler. SuttonBeresCuller met as students at Cornish College of the Arts and have worked together on a variety of innovative projects since 2000. They have created mobile sculptures, street actions and temporary site-specific installations that engage audiences in exciting ways. Their collaborative work has been shown in Seattle including installations through Mad Art’s recent site-specific projects, Mad Homes, in Seattle’s North Capitol Hill neighborhood; Panoptos at the Henry Art Gallery in 2010; Three Dragon Restaurant in These Walls Could Talk at Lawrimore Project in 2006; and Open House at Suyama Space, Seattle, WA in 2002. Grants include the MacDowell Colony, Artists in Residence in 2010; the Open Studio at the Henry Art Gallery in 2010; Seattle Foundation Grant and Allied Arts Foundation Artist Grant in 2009; Creative Capital Foundation Grant for the Visual Arts in 2008, among others.

Their work will be featured this weekend (September 15-18) in a performance called To Be Determined they have created for On the Boards. The trio is represented by Lawrimore Project, Seattle, WA.

Lisa Liedgren (Swedish, born 1966) is a Seattle-based visual artist whose work investigates formal patterns and abstract systems as a pictorial language. Using drawing, painting and textile as her primary medium, Liedgren addresses historical and cultural phenomena through a marked process by reevaluating facts and data about a particular subject, stressing the idea of perception—that what we see depends on its context and how we choose to look at it. As a process artist, she produces symbolic work that explores the range of internal factors that motivate the creative process, allowing both the subjective and intellectual elements to be present in the course of action. Born and raised in Sweden, Liedgren is a graduate of Beckman’s College of Design in Stockholm and École Nationale Supérieure de Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Canada, including Bright Yellow and Dark Blue at the Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle in 2004, WA; International Abstraction I at the Seattle Art Museum in 2003; The End at the Tacoma Art Museum in 1999, among others. In addition, solo exhibitions were shown at the James Harris Gallery in 2003; L’Oeil de Poisson, Centre D’art Actuel, Quebec City, Canada; and the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR. Her work is also included in the Seattle Art Museum’s collection