Seattle Art Museum: Annual Betty Bowen Award Competition

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, and a selection of Heishman’s work will be on view at the Seattle Art Museum beginning October 20, 2011.

In addition, 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.

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 Nordstrom Lecture Hall 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.

SuttonBeresCuller is a dynamic collaborative of three artists that includes John Sutton, Ben Bere, 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.

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.

Betty Bowen (1918–1977) was a Washington native and enthusiastic supporter of Northwest artists. Her friends established the annual Betty Bowen Award as a celebration of her life and to honor and continue her efforts to provide financial support to artists of the region. Since 1977, SAM has hosted the yearly grant application process by which the selection committee chooses one artist living and working in the Northwest (Washington, Oregon and Idaho) to receive an unrestricted cash award.

2011 Betty Bowen Committee Members

Jeffrey Bishop
Cris Bruch (Rotating Artist position)
Gary Glant (Chair)
Peggy Golberg
Anne Gould Hauberg
Mike Hess
Isaac Layman
Mark Levine
Catharina Manchanda (SAM’s Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art)
Llewelyn Pritchard
Greg Robinson
Norie Sato
Bill True
Maggie Walker
Tom Wilson
Dan Webb

Rotating artists are past recipients of the award who are rotated onto the committee for several year periods.

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Jenny Heishman Named 2011 Betty Bowen Award Winner

2011 Betty Bowen Committee Members