Photographer Jennifer Colten, senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and Paul Tran, a senior poetry fellow in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, both at Washington University in St. Louis, have won 2019 Artist Fellowships from the Regional Arts Commission (RAC) of St. Louis.
Also among this year’s 10 honorees are Kevin McCoy, who earned a master’s degree in visual art from the Sam Fox School in May, and Asha Premachandra, founder of Dances of India and an adjunct instructor in University College.
Launched in 2013, the annual fellowships are designed to support development of artists’ careers, 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.
Colten’s work explores the representation of landscapes, social spaces and cultural geographies at the margins of the urban environment. Her photos have been included in institutions such as the Denver Art Museum, the Museum Hundertwasser in Vienna and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogota, Colombia.
Tran’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Good Morning America, Nylon and elsewhere, including the 2017 movie “Love Beats Rhymes.” Also in 2017, Tran became the first transgender poet to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam. Last fall, Chancellor Andrew D. Martin invited Tran to deliver a new work at Martin’s inauguration.
For more information, visit racstl.org.
