SAIC Faculty Maria Gaspar and Candida Alvarez Awarded with Latinx Artist Fellowship

Two portraits, one of Candida Alvarez and one of Maria Gaspar, are placed next to each other. On the left, Alvarez is wearing white framed glasses and a black shirt. She has dark curly hair. On the right, Gaspar wears a deep navy blue shirt, turquoise earrings, and a short, cropped haircut.

Professor Candida Alvarez and Associate Professor Maria Gaspar. Images courtesy of the Mellon Foundation.

Professor Candida Alvarez and Associate Professor Maria Gaspar. Images courtesy of the Mellon Foundation.

Associate Professor Maria Gaspar and Professor Candida Alvarez recently were named recipients of this year’s Latinx Artist Fellowship. Established by the Ford Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, the Latinx Artist Fellowship will award grants to 75 Latinx artists over a five-year period with each recipient receiving an unrestricted grant of $50,000. 

Both faculty members were recognized for their innovative work. Gaspar’s interdisciplinary practice addresses issues surrounding power structures and spatial justice by using installation, sculpture, performance, and sound, such as in her ongoing performance series Disappearance Suit, which examines marginalized identities in American culture. 

Alvarez creates art that blurs the boundaries between the conceptual, the intuitive, and the abstract. Her most recent solo exhibition Palimpsest features a collection of paintings created with a unique approach, first drawn with pencil and watercolor on Yupo paper, then scanned, digitized, and printed on canvases with acrylic polymer ink, and finishes her pieces with layers of matte acrylic paint.

Congratulations to our two SAIC faculty members on this incredible accomplishment!

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