2023 Nohl Fellowship winners include Mikal Floyd-Pruitt, Janelle VanderKelen
Five artists, including Mikal Floyd-Pruitt and Janelle VanderKelen, have won southeastern Wisconsin's prestigious prize for individual artists, the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship.
Each year, the Nohl Fund gives two established artists $35,000 and three emerging artists $15,000 each to create new work or complete work in progress. The funds, given in memory of the late artist Nohl, are unrestricted.
Each artist also will receive a $5,000 professional development/production budget.
The 20th annual competition drew 157 applicants.
The five winners, all based in Milwaukee, will participate in a Haggerty Museum of Art exhibit planned for 2024.
Winners in the established artist category:
Interdisciplinary artist Mikal Floyd-Pruitt works in visual art, performance, music, media and community engagement. His practice includes "designing artistic frameworks in which community members, including non-artists of all ages, can gather and contribute," the Nohl Fund said in its announcement. Floyd-Pruitt is co-director of HomeWorks: Bronzeville, a local development initiative. He is a graduate of Harvard University.
Artist, curator and educator Janelle VanderKelen makes films and intermedia installations, including experimental animation. She earned two master's degrees in visual art fields from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. VanderKelen co-curates aCinema, a monthly exhibition of experimental moving images, usually held at Woodland Pattern Book Center. She also teaches time-based media production at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
Winners in the emerging artist category:
Sculptor Siara Berry works with a range of materials and media, including woodworking, concrete and found objects. "My practice is an overarching critique of American housing systems and ideals," she discloses on her website. Berry is arts/industry program director at Sheboygan's Kohler Arts Center and is artist-in-residence at the Charles Allis Art Museum.
Interdisciplinary artist Fatima Laster is curator and owner-operator of 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios, 3514 N. Port Washington Ave., which foregrounds a Black American point of view, including producing "resistance art imbued with humor or irony in an attempt to disarmingly reveal rejected or overlooked perspectives and people," according to the Nohl announcement.
Artist, writer and educator Alayna N. Pernell uses research, photography, text and found materials to examine the realities and complexities of being a Black American. She teaches photography and imaging at UWM.
Finalists in the established artist category included Emily Belknap, Blanche Brown, Melissa Dorn and David Najib Kasir.
Finalists in the emerging artist category included Anamarie Edwards, Ben Grant and Chris Regner.
This year's jurors included Jadine Collingwood, assistant curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Thomas James, independent curator and executive director at The Last Resort Artist Retreat, Baltimore; and Kimi Kitada, curatorial fellow at Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri. The jurors visited Milwaukee for a public talk and studio visits with finalists in the established and emerging artist categories.
The fellowship program is funded by a bequest from the late Fox Point artist Mary L. Nohl.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 2023 Nohl Fellowship winners include Mikal Floyd-Pruitt, Siara Berry
