Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize

@alianagrace

Aliana Grace Bailey is an interdisciplinary fiber artist, designer, care worker, and founder of vibrant grace studio. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Aliana weaves layers of interconnection, comfort, healing, and storytelling through fiber. Aliana’s work embraces the vulnerability of artmaking to build intimacy, preserve memories, heal wounds, and create inner peace. Aliana’s work is large in scale, emotional, and vibrant in color, encompassing the body and providing viewers with a comforting hug while exploring familial connections, material, and experiences that tug at our hearts.

@amandalburnham

Amanda Burnham makes drawings of all kinds: artist books, comics, intimate observational drawings, dimensional collages, and large, site-specific installations which feel somewhere between a comic book and a stage set. A six-time Sondheim semifinalist, four-time MSAC Independent Artist Award winner, and Rubys Grantee, Burnham’s work has been shown internationally; selected venues include the Berman Museum, American University Art Museum, the Delaware Contemporary, and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Since graduating from the Yale School of Art (MFA ’07) she has been a professor of art at Towson University.

@divinagraciaphoto

Anna Divinagracia is lens based interdisciplinary artist, whose work is inspired by her shared experiences growing up in the Philippines and coming of age in Baltimore. Born in 1997 in Davao City, Philippines, Divinagracia’s artistic journey began at a young age when she discovered her passion for viewing and capturing the world around her through her camera. With a particular curiosity towards the intricacies and nuances of Filipino and American culture, Divinagracia uses her art to explore themes of love, destiny, home, identity, and acculturation as an immigrant.

@magic_artefacts

Emily was born in Honolulu, raised in Missouri’s lead belt, and educated in Saint Louis and the District of Columbia. Her work has been shown at IA&A at Hillyer, VisArts, Rhizome DC, Transformer, Area 405, GlogauAIR Project Space, Vilnius Academy of Arts, The John F. Kennedy Center, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Emily’s work has been reviewed in Hackaday, The Washington Post, and Hyperallergic. She has lectured at the Media Archeology Lab at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and at various other institutions. Emily is currently based in Washington DC, maintains a studio at STABLE Arts, is a solo parent, and an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University.

@jerrellgibbs

Jerrell Gibbs explores the complexities of life by investigating his personal experiences and those of family and friends. His paintings highlight: joy, beauty, and the mundane, all components within the vastness of life. Gibbs aims to re-create the emotional sensation associated with life experiences offering viewers the opportunity to reflect on universal moments we all share. Gibbs graduated with an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD in 2020. His work is in the permanent collection of the Brandywine Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Art, the CC Foundation, and the X Museum Beijing.

@najee_hf

Najee H.F. is a Black Queer Femme artist from the northeastern United States. She is a sculptor/designer, educator/learner and unshakable optimist. In 2024 Najee received an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. Najee’s practice includes exploring various methods of weaving, mixed media collage, encaustic painting, video and performance. Najee’s current work is centered around the study of materials that their ancestors who were enslaved in the U.S. might have touched with their hands. Their goal is to reclaim these materials and methods in an effort to heal their relationship to land and labor as an exploited body and to create co-learning opportunities with others as a means for collective healing.

@marnie_ellen

Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s practice encompasses lens-based media, digital systems, and isolated landscapes. Through her work, she explores the intersection of historical and speculative narratives to examine the politics of time, the environment, and the relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. Marnie was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She has received numerous accolades, including being a Creative Capital Awardee and fellowships from Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the IFP Narrative Lab, the Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund. Additionally, she has been awarded a Rubys Artist Award and was a Rooftop Film Fund Fellow.

@lillian_jacobson

Lillian Jacobson (b. 1994, Bogotá, Colombia) is a Baltimore-based Latiné artist defining “belonging” through figurative painting. Adopted into a white American family, Lillian has always been attuned to how she is seen by others, which informs her empathetic approach to portraiture. Lillian holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited in group shows across the region, including the Maryland Art Place, Chesapeake Arts Center, Bowie City Hall, Maryland Federation of Art, and the Delaplaine Arts Center, where she won the People’s Choice Award for the 2024 exhibition, Emerging Perspectives.

@heee__h

Heejo Kim (b. 1995, Seoul, South Korea) is a figurative oil painter whose work explores themes of identity, existence, interconnectedness, and tenderness. She received her MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2023 and her BFA in Painting from Hongik University in Seoul in 2018. Rooted in the Buddhist philosophy of Dependent Arising (Yeongi-sull), Kim’s paintings emphasize the symbiotic relationships between individuals and objects. By obscuring facial features, her figures transcend gender, age, nationality, and ethnicity, blurring boundaries between self and others. Through textured surfaces and vibrant complementary colors, she creates immersive spaces that evoke tenderness and belonging, where bodies and selves exist in ambiguity—uncertain yet deeply connected.

@XLasersohn

Xyl Lasersohn’s large scale oil paintings address the uncanniness of the ordinary. Originally from NE Ohio, Xyl currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Xyl received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art before earning an MFA from The Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. His paintings have been exhibited at the Butler Institute of Art, The Peale Museum, Botanica Grove NYC, Hedge Gallery, Framework, and The Yards Projects. His work has also been featured by Ocean State Review and Bold Journey Magazine.

@lusmerlin

Bold like the streets of Santo Domingo, where she grew up, LUSMERLIN is a nationally exhibiting multidisciplinary artist, based in Greater Baltimore while also holding a Philadelphia practice. She has a professional background as a chemical engineer in textile and cement manufacturing. LUSMERLIN’s practice explores her own womanhood and identity: the presence of the body in space; the richness and baggage of her complex heritage -African, Arab, Spanish, Taino-; and her metamorphic immigration experience since moving to the U.S. in 2016. LUSMERLIN’s approach “controlled chaos” results in abstracted paintings, installations, photography and impromptu performances full of whim and force.

@ktzulan

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann creates large scale paintings and paper installations that examine mythology, identity, and landscape. Some of the venues where Mann has shown her work include the Kreeger Museum, Academy Art Museum, Walters Art Museum, the US consulate in Dubai, UAE, and the US embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon.

@Blackchakra88

Jacob Mayberry aka Black Chakra. Is a world traveled spoken word artist and poetry champion. In Baltimore he had cultivated his legacy by teaching youth how to find the power in their voices through poetry. He has coached eight statewide youth poetry champions and three international youth poetry finalist teams. He hopes to one day be remembered as an artist who changed the climate of Baltimore through his work.

@mcdonoughclaudia

Claudia McDonough is a mixed media artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Between material and feeling, her work gives form to what is present yet intangible: the weight of sorrow, the residue of memory, and the strength that emerges from our deepest fractures. Claudia earned her Master of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University and has exhibited nationally. For Claudia, materials guide and shape the emotional resonance of each piece. Through this process, her work provides a tactile space to engage with difficult and subtle emotions, honoring these experiences by giving them the space to exist and be acknowledged.

@mesa5527

I was born in Cuba came to the U.S. at an early age. Move to Baltimore to attend Grad. School. In the past few years, I’ve been working on paintings that combine my Afro-Cuban background with the traditions of western painting. Mixing Baroque, Surrealism and abstraction with African and Santeria influenced imagery.

@margotdemessieres

@tsetsco

Marguerite de Messières and Tsvetomir Naydenov are a collaborative artist team working in sculpture, painting, drawing, metalwork, and stop-motion animation. Tsetso grew up amid the urban towers and train yards of post-Communist Bulgaria, while Margot spent her childhood surrounded by sheep and chickens on a small farm in rural Maryland. Drawing from their contrasting individual practices, they combine their wide-ranging skills to create tactile, site-specific works that explore personal experience, collective memory, and environment, blending traditional techniques with contemporary methods to foster curiosity, spark dialogue, and deepen connections between people and the spaces they inhabit.

@lindsaymuellerart

Lindsay Mueller is a painter whose practice considers interconnection, perceptual ambiguity, and decay, often through the lens of landscape, in her tactile, layered paintings. Mueller grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and she currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. She holds a BFA in Painting and a BA in Psychology from Boston University, and an MFA in Visual Arts from American University. Her work has been exhibited locally at Gallery B (MD), Brentwood Arts Exchange (MD), Adah Rose Gallery (MD), MOCA Arlington (VA), Studio Gallery (DC), Stable (DC), and the American University Museum (DC). In 2023 Mueller received the Bethesda Painting Young Artist award, and she was recently an Artist-in-Residence at Mount Gretna School of Art (PA).

@daniellemysliwiecstudio

Danielle Mysliwiec is an artist and educator. She received a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Hunter College. Selected solo exhibitions include C O U N T Y Gallery (Palm Beach, FL), Novella Gallery (New York, NY), and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA). Recent group exhibitions include Asya Geisberg Gallery (New York, NY), McKenzie Fine Art (New York, NY), Mixed Greens Gallery (New York, NY,), Transmitter Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Heiner Contemporary (Washington, DC), and The Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design (Asheville, NC). Her paintings have been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Maake Magazine, Inertia, Art Fag City, The Washington Post, B’more Art, and Two Coats of Paint. Recent awards include residencies at the Tides Institute & Museum, Long Meadow Art Residency, and Surf Point, and grants from the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery COunty and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Mysliwiec is an Associate Professor of Art at American University in Washington, DC.

@tnicholsonart

Terence Nicholson is a versatile Baltimore-based artist whose work seamlessly blends visual art, music, and martial arts. He draws inspiration from the convergence of these disciplines, creating a unique and multifaceted creative practice. His visual artwork has garnered significant recognition, with exhibitions at prestigious venues including Honfleur Gallery, Willow Street Gallery in Takoma Park, and Strathmore. Currently, his work is featured in the “Sightlines” exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Nicholson’s musical talents are equally distinguished. He has toured globally and collaborated with some of the most respected names in music, including jazz saxophonist Steve Coleman, pianist Omar Sosa, and the hip-hop group Opus Akoben.

@davidpageartist

David Page is an artist who tries to explain intersecting notions around threat, risk, power imbalances, punishment and everyday brutality. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Page earned a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the Cape Tecnikon in 1986 and received an MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002.He was awarded the Mary Sawyers Baker Prize for Visual Arts in 2019, received the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award in 1996, 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2014, won the Trawick Prize in 2004 and received the University of Maryland’s Art for Peace Award in 2001, which included the commission of a small sculptural object which was presented to Nelson Mandela upon his visit to the university. Mr. Page teaches at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University and the American University, where he is Sculptor in Residence. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, jewelry designer Lauren Schott and Hank the dog.

@charbroiled

Charlotte Richardson-Deppe is a queer feminist artist working between performance and soft sculpture. She received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches drawing, sculpture, and photography as a Lecturer in the Department of Art. In 2023-24, she was the Bresler Resident Artist at VisArts, the Collaborative Artist-in-Residence at Montgomery College, and the inaugural resident artist at the Stamp Gallery. She is currently completing the Post-Graduate Artist Residency at the Torpedo Factory Arts Center. She has shown work at MOCA Taipei, Auckland Pride Festival, NextNow Fest, Culture Lab LIC, StableArts, Rhizome DC, Source Theatre, VisArts, Phaze 2 Gallery, NE Sculpture, Maryland Art Place, and more.

@anneclarerogers

Anne Clare Rogers is a Baltimore-based Sculptor. She has participated in residencies at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and Ox-bow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI. She is a 2024 Rubys Artist Grant recipient.

@jjak_nun

Wonchul Ryu (Korean, b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Seoul, Korea, and Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently pursuing his BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore and expects to graduate in spring 2025. Ryu participated in the Yale Norfolk School of Art residency program in 2024, and has exhibited in group shows such as, Exchange (Maryland Art Place, 2024), and Beyond Borders (The Bridge Arts Foundation, LA, 2023). In 2021 Ryu had a solo show, 우린 나쁜 꿈 속에 있었지. (We Were in The Bad Dreams.) at 양천리 갤러리 (Yangcheonri Gallery) (Seoul, Korea, 2021).

@hedy.6000

Hedy Ward, born in Albuquerque, NM, is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Baltimore, MD, where she earned her BFA in General Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Interested in material itself, her work utilizes a wide range of media as well as found ephemera and ready-made objects. Her work often utilizes playfulness as a critical method for exploring the relationship between cultural media and individual experience.

@kshantee

Kelli Williams is an animator and visual artist. In her personal work, she uses stop-motion animation, photography, augmented reality, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Columbus Live, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Baltimore magazine, and Netflix’s Cops and Robbers.

@andersenwoof

Andersen Woof (b. 1989) is a Chinese American painter who lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Originally trained in landscape architecture (RISD), Andersen constantly looks for ambiguous narratives that reflect the complexities of humanity through the lens of his own queer and immigrant life. He has been in various group exhibitions at Semiose Gallery (Paris, France), 1969 Gallery (New York, NY), Fortnight Institute (New York, NY), CPM Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Vardan Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Acappella Gallery (Naples, Italy), and more. Andersen is a grant finalist of the Hopper Prize, and his work has been featured in New American Paintings, ArtMaze Magazine, Booooooom, Mepaintsme, and Mothflower, among others.