CHARLESTON, SC.- The Gibbes Museum of Art announced Sherrill Roland as the 2023 winner of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. Characterizing his artistic concerns, Roland’s 2022 public art installation Due Innocence, patterned after a vintage optical exam, asks the question “what does your innocence look like to a local judge.” After spending ten months in prison for a crime that he was later exonerated of, Roland returned to his artistic practice using only materials he had access to, or saw, while incarcerated. He will be awarded a $10,000 cash prize and recognized at the Society 1858 Amy P. Coy Forum scheduled for Feb. 9, 2024. Honorable mentions go to Carlie Trosclair and Hiromi Moneyhun.
“We’re proud to honor Sherrill and his work for imparting a first-hand understanding of the ramifications of the criminal justice system and how art can lead to healing,” says Angela Mack, executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art. “Established to honor a living artist whose work contributes to a new understanding of the arts in the South, the 1858 Prize has showcased 15 Southern artists. This year, we are honored to showcase Sherrill’s artistry and look forward to witnessing his continued contributions to the world of art."
Sherrill Roland’s interdisciplinary practice deals with concepts of innocence, identity and community, reimagining their social and political implications in the context of the American criminal justice system. After being wrongfully incarcerated, he returned to his artistic practice, which he now uses as a vehicle for self-reflection and an outlet for emotional release. Converting the haunting nuances of his experiences into drawings, sculptures, multimedia objects, performances and participatory activities, Sherrill continues to share his story and creates spaces for others to do the same, illuminating the invisible costs, damages and burdens of incarceration. Using a limited material list, consisting of only the materials he could touch while incarcerated, he looks towards these reflections of the material reality as an incarnated subject. From the tracing of cinderblock grout lines to the anxieties brought upon by contraband items or the heightened paramount of commissary goods, his practice invites the viewer into an altered reality, characterized by constriction and the passing of time.
Sherrill Roland was born in 1984 in Asheville, NC, studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2018) and earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2017 and 2009). He has had solo exhibitions at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York City (2022) and the Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Gallery, Georgetown University, Washington, DC (2019) among others.
Established in 2007, the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art awards $10,000 to a living artist whose work contributes to a new understanding of the arts in the South. Presented annually, the prize recognizes an artist whose work demonstrates the highest level of achievement in any media. Entering the 16th year, this Prize has awarded over $160,000 to artists as well as implemented a new initiative to display one work by the Prize winner in the museum’s Mary Jackson Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery for one year. The Museum has also been fortunate enough to acquire artworks by Prize winners and finalists through the years to diversify and expand the contemporary permanent collection. Past winners include Raheleh Filsoofi (2022), Stephanie J. Woods (2021), Stephen L. Hayes (2020), Donté K. Hayes (2019), Leo Twiggs (2018), Bo Bartlett (2017), Alicia Henry (2016), Deborah Luster (2015), Sonya Clark (2014), John Westmark (2012), Patrick Dougherty (2011) and Radcliffe Bailey (2010).
