DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art announced its 2009 Awards to Artists. The Museum’s annual awards were established in 1980 by The Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund to recognize exceptional talent and potential in young visual artists who show a commitment to continuing their artistic endeavors. The Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund is awarded to artists between 15 and 25 years of age who reside in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona or Colorado, while The Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund is open to residents of Texas under the age of 30. The two funds have awarded over $400,000 to artists since their founding.

In 1990, The Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant was created to honor the memory of Dallas artists Otis and Velma Dozier, who strongly believed in the enriching influence of travel on an artist’s work. The grant seeks to recognize exceptional talent in professional artists who wish to expand their artistic horizons through domestic or foreign travel and is awarded to professional artists at least 30 years of age who reside in Texas. Since the fund’s development, The Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant has given over $120,000.

The 2009 Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award recipients:

• Beatriz Cabrera’s work explores the limits of communication and how these restrictions influence the public and private realms. Her latest project, Dear George, involves a series of fictional love letters between her and former president George W. Bush. She is interested in continuing to work in video to further develop these concerns. She is completing her B.A. in Art History with a minor in Studio Art at Southern Methodist University.

• Currently working toward a B.A. in Sculpture at the University of North Texas, Yuki Ogura is concerned with the interaction between viewer and artwork in performance art. She will use her winnings to acquire a camcorder to further explore performance and video as media for expression.

• Alfredo Salazar is completing his undergraduate degree in art at Brookhaven College and has been working as a Studio Assistant within the Art Department. Salazar’s work centers on revealing beauty in what is considered dreadful. He addresses the duality of conflict and resolution while recording his own artistic growth. He will use the funds awarded to cultivate his skills in carving, woodworking, and welding.

• Vanessa Tomczak is pursuing a degree in Fiber Arts at the University of North Texas, and her work investigates the convergence of technology and textiles. Tomczak received the grant for a journey to Germany, where she will interview craftspeople and visit museums dedicated to textiles, in addition to The Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, to research the history and relationship of fiber arts to new media.

The 2009 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award recipients:

• Piotr Chizinski earned his B.F.A. in Sculpture and Photography from Texas Tech University. The images in his photographic series, The Living Room Scale Project, serve as visual studies of socio-economic data embedded in household items. Using the work of sociologist Francis Stuart Chapin as a model, Chizinski photographs living rooms in Lubbock, Texas, and then analyzes those spaces to assign numeric “values” to each object displayed in the rooms. These objects, in turn, reveal class implications; the values assigned to various objects appear in charts that surround each photographic image. Chizinski will use the funds from the Kimbrough award to travel to Hilmsen, Germany, where he plans to photograph and analyze the living rooms in that town, located in the region formerly controlled by the Soviet Union.

• Timothy Harding is an M.F.A candidate in Painting at Texas Christian University and he earned his B.F.A. last year from Texas Woman’s University. Harding’s complex assemblages exist at the intersection of drawing and sculpture. Composed of undulating strips of paper formed into structures that engage the walls, floor, and ceiling of the gallery, the work has an imposing and dynamic physicality. Harding will use his award to create larger-scale installations that will also incorporate other material elements.

• Candace Hicks is an M.F.A candidate at Texas Christian University and earned her B.F.A. from Austin College. Working in a variety of media, including installation, artist books, and textiles, Hicks explores the relevance of traditional craft in the contemporary world. She will use the funds awarded to participate in collaboration with Associació Catalana de Puntaires, an association in Barcelona that promotes traditional lace-making arts in the Catalan region of Spain. Hicks will work with members of the association to create panels of hand-woven texts, thereby exploring the junctions of art and craft as well as language and visual art.

• Angélica Muñoz Castaño is an M.F.A candidate at Texas Tech University and holds a B.F.A. in photography from William Patterson University in New Jersey. Her photographs focus on cross-cultural dialogue and explore her personal identity as a Colombian artist living in the United States. Castaño will use her award to continue a photographic project in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, her ancestral home, to investigate the convergence of Native Indian, African, and Spanish traditions there.

• Kit Reisch earned his B.F.A. last year from Texas State University. He produces large-scale installation works, incorporating sculpture, drawing and digital media that explore the relationship between fabricated environments and real space. Reisch often pairs real and familiar objects with artificial settings. Reisch will use the funds awarded to him to purchase materials for an installation project inspired by his forthcoming extended visit to Prague.

The 2009 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant recipients:

• Denton-based artist Annette Lawrence is exceptionally conscious of materials, especially in regard to time and space. Her series Free Paper (a work from which is in the DMA’s collections) consists of pieces of junk mail methodically hand-torn into strips of a uniform width and bound together only by a thin line of glue down the back edge, which results in a de-contextualization of junk mail and its original function. With the Dozier Travel Grant, Lawrence will travel to Melbourne, Australia, to participate in a residency at Monash University for her project Yesterday, Tomorrow, which will explore the possibilities of time as it changes over the span of the globe. Lawrence has an extensive exhibition history that includes the 1997 Whitney Biennial and a solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. She is represented by Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Dallas.

• Elliott Johnson earned his B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Tyler Museum of Art and the Arlington Museum of Art, among other venues. In Johnson’s paintings, Rococo decorative motifs float freely in undefined space and seem to engage in conversation via text bubbles. Johnson will use his award to visit more than a dozen Baroque and Rococo churches in southern Germany. The elaborate decorative schemes of these churches serve as the basis for Johnson’s own formal vocabulary, and his trip will allow him to experience and document these ornate structures firsthand. Johnson is represented by Road Agent Gallery, Dallas.

• Awards to Artists grants have been awarded to more than 215 recipients, many of whom have gone on to successful careers within North Texas and across the country. Over the years, the DMA has acquired works from many of the artists who have received awards from the DeGolyer, Kimbrough and Dozier funds. DeGolyer artists include Jeff Elrod, Misty Keasler, and Robyn O’Neil. Kimbrough artists include David Bates, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Melissa Miller, Robert Pruitt, Michael Miller, Erick Swenson, and Kelli Connell. Dozier artists include Helen Altman, Annette Lawrence, Scott Barber, Joseph Havel, Katrina Moorhead, Ludwig Schwarz, and John Pomara.