Tim Portlock, associate professor in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a 2019 Artist Fellowship from the Regional Arts Commission.
Launched in 2013, the annual fellowships are designed to support the development of the individual artist’s career, providing time and space to study, reflect, experiment, explore and create. They are among the few multidisciplinary fellowships of their kind in the United States. Each recipient receives a $20,000 award.
Portlock, who is also chair of the undergraduate art program, combines special effects software and the visual conventions of 19th-century American painting to creatively simulate contemporary cityscapes. In recent years, his large-format print images have depicted imagined landscapes populated with the empty buildings that surround his home as well as developments in post-boom-and-bust Las Vegas and San Bernardino, Calif. Other work uses large outdoor video projections onto buildings, creating temporary public art that incorporates new media and the visual language of murals while engaging with architecture and city space.
Also among the 10 honorees this year are two Sam Fox School alumni: mixed-media artist Margaret Keller (MFA ‘89) and video artist William Morris (BFA ‘85).
