Third Annual Daniel Manacher Prize for Young Artists – Opening Reception
September 14, 2024 @ 2:00 pm - October 5, 2024 @ 4:00 pm
September 14 – October 6
Please note the date change!
3rd Annual Daniel Manacher Prize for Young Artists
Opening reception 2-4 pm
We are very excited to announce the winners of the 2024 Daniel Manacher Prize for Young Artists! This year’s juror was Josephine Halvorson, an accomplished artist and the Chair of the MFA Program in Painting at Boston University’s College of Fine Art. She has a studio here in Sandisfield.
Image above, Daniel Manacher and Shwoopy Loops.
The three winners are:
Aidan White (website https://www.aidan-white.com/)
The show also includes the work of 2023 winner Laina Falcon (website https://www.falconlaina.com/)
Aidan White was born in Princeton, NJ, and has lived in the Berkshires since he was eight. He is a painting major at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and expects to finish his BFA in August, 2024.
From his statement: I enjoy painting portraits of people and their pets using an expressionistic style. I sometimes place objects in the painting representing something of the subject’s life. While I place objects in a painting intentionally, I leave it to the viewer to make of it what they will. Sometimes, the allusion is obvious, and sometimes not. I also enjoy experimenting with surrealistic subjects that are disjointed and dreamlike. I find the images I use as inspiration in literature, music, current events, and nature, especially human anatomy.
Mico Aldmar Mendozawas born in 2000, and grew up in a small rural town in Central Luzon, Philippines. I am a computer science major, and has a background in environmental sustainability and studio art. He plans to pursue an MFA after graduation and wants to explore the possibilities when it comes to upcycling waste, minimizing material dependence, and exploring sustainable practices/techniques in art.
From his statement: A lot of my work is centered around sustainability and upcycling waste materials – recontextualizing the materiality and meaning of objects that are in excess, wasted, left behind. My three recent sculptures, for example, are made purely of electronic waste from Williams College offices and from local community members – two of which don’t use any other materials at all, even adhesives and binding products.
Warwick Willow grew up surrounded by art. Their early creative experiences involved painting with homemade watercolors, sculpting with salt dough, and exploring their mother’s vast art collection in their family home in New Mexico. They began their formal study of the arts at the age of 15, going on to graduate from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, with an Associate of Arts in Liberal Arts. Having discovered their love of clay, they transferred to the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, where they studied ceramics and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. They currently work at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington as a Community Director.
From their statement: My work is an exploration of the connections between art, domesticity, and personal identity as it is tied to a living space. Finding inspiration in the beauty of the mundane and the moments of history found within a home, I aim to create work that brings joy into that intimate space without requiring a pedestal or formal display. When exhibiting my work I prioritize creating an environment that holds stories and feels full of life.
Falcon Laina, 2023 winner, will be showing new work.
Focusing on scenes from their vivid dreams, Falcon’s work explores the eerie, otherworldly and horrific. By using slow and methodical techniques to bring these pieces to life, and by presenting a static and beautiful fine art object, they strive to take away its ability to jumpscare. Falcon’s drawings and sculptures often depict a monster which is made of both human and animal parts.
These embodiments of taboo and monstrosity are comments on their experience with gender queerness. By presenting these creatures as lovingly crafted creations, they hope to elicit a sense of curiosity and wonder in the viewer, and a greater respect for the mysterious.