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Boston: Announcing the Fay Chandler Emerging Art Exhibition Award Winners

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2024 was filled with a myriad of diverse, innovative, and thought-provoking installations in the City Hall Galleries, and we couldn't think of a more fitting way to close out the year than with a celebration of the eighth annual Fay Chandler Emerging Art Exhibition, which showcases the artistic voices shaping the future of Greater Boston's visual arts scene.

This exhibition is inspired by Fay Chandler, a Boston philanthropist and arts advocate who began her artistic journey later in life. Chandler's legacy is a symbol of inspiration and perseverance for our community. We thank her family for their generous support of this program.

"This year, we were incredibly impressed by the powerful submissions we received, making the selection process quite challenging," said Mariana Rey, the City of Boston's Galleries and Exhibitions Manager. "Ultimately, we selected 58 artists whose work explores identity, perception, intimacy, and their place in the world through a variety of mediums and perspectives."

This year's jurors were Matilda Biscaldi, the Gallery Manager of Praise Shadows Gallery; Julia Szejnblum, the Director of Visual Arts of Boston Center for the Arts; and Sam Toabe, the Gallery Director of University Hall Gallery in UMass Boston.

Of the 58 selected artworks, six were awarded cash prizes, the most awards offered in the program's history. Along with Best in Show ($3,000), the 50+ Award ($2,000), and the New Voice Award ($2,000), the three jurors also each awarded a Juror's Choice Award ($500 each).

"It is truly special to open up the space to so many artists, some exhibiting their work for the first time," Rey said. "This exhibition is a great survey of the work emerging artists are creating across the Greater Boston area."

Without further ado, here are the winning artworks:

BEST IN SHOW

Native by Stacy Arman

Artist based in Jamaica Plain

Stacy Arman is a multidisciplinary fiber artist. Her work explores and celebrates Black hair and hairstyles. "My work is about how one manipulates hair. This can be for the purpose of survival, to show belonging to a community, or to become an outsider of one." She holds a BFA in Fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Arman shared that the creation of Native was deeply time and labor intensive.

"It can take months to do a weaving," she said. This process includes dyeing the warp, setting it on the loom, weaving using a time-consuming Danish lace technique, pinning on the glass beads, creating the frame, and coiling the wire installed at the bottom of the piece.

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In addition to the time spent creating the piece, she shared, "It took nine years for me to finish my bachelors degree in fiber arts and textiles. The weaving you see is the result of all of this."

Arman was awarded a $3,000 prize for winning Best in Show. When asked what this prize meant to her, she shared, "This award essentially pays for two months of my rent. For a person that's always having to think about housing costs, THAT MEANS EVERYTHING."

50+ AWARD

Sea by Yorgos Efthymiadis

Artist based in Somerville

Yorgos Efthymiadis is an artist and curator from Greece. When he returned, for the very first time after many years abroad, to his place of origin, he had an unsettling feeling. Even though he was surrounded by loved ones, he could not shake off the feeling of non-belonging. He was a stranger in a foreign land, struggling to fit into the place he had consigned to the past in the process of moving on with his life, only to now realize that he had been banished in return. After moving away, he had to rediscover what he left behind by retracing the long traveled paths of his memories.

"This seascape was taken in Halkidiki, Greece, right by the house I grew up in. I have fond memories of this beach, and every time I visit my family I spend hours by the water, wandering around, and swimming in its shallow waters. It is thrilling to see this photograph in Boston City Hall because it's like a part of my early childhood is here with me, thousands of miles away," said Yorgos Efthymiadis. "I'm very honored to receive this award and be able to showcase my work to a wider audience, outside traditional art spaces, and connect with fellow artists from diverse mediums."

NEW VOICE AWARD

Ponte Dream I by Adam Maserow

Artist based in Cambridge

Inspired by durational art therapy methods, Maserow meditatively draws both buildings and people to confront temporal, geographic, and relational ruptures. Originally from South Africa, his work reflects on collective catastrophe and cultural identity. By merging personal daily experiences of isolation and alienation through drawing, he aims to foreground ways of navigating shared human difficulties.

"Ponte Dream I is a fictional rendering of a real brutalist building in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I'm from," Maserow said of his winning artwork. "It's been interesting to exhibit this piece in another iconic Brutalist building, an ocean away from my first home."

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JUROR'S CHOICE (Matilda Biscaldi)

Romance Isn't Dead by Freddy Thomas

Artist based in Allston

Freddy Thomas' work describes their queer experience through shining a light on the performative nature of masculinity. Through the use of clowns, they allude to gender performances that take place from day to day and circumvent the expectation of masculine bodies. In their work, they feature an outside observer to suggest an aspect of voyeurism that is in place to scrutinize the clown who has been placed in more "feminine" situations as implied by hyper masculine ideals.

"This award is a testament to my work and my work ethic – it was an honor to be selected as one of the winners," Thomas shared. "It serves as a tangible reminder to keep working hard and putting myself out there as difficult as it feels to sometimes."

JUROR'S CHOICE (Julia Szejnblum)

Ashima + Ahei by Mimi Zhang

Artist based in Medford

Mimi Zhang's work explores the facets of painting, woodworking, and metals as a way to collage together ephemeral thoughts and brooding monologues surrounding themes of heritage, culture, and identity. Mimi creates a cohesive dialogue focusing on intergenerational storytelling that encourages the viewer to reflect on their own inherited histories. Their work utilizes lived experiences of family, elders, and friends for the purpose of biomythography, the combination of myth, history, and biography.

JUROR'S CHOICE (Sam Toabe)

Extinguish by Maia Hay

Artist based in West Bridgewater

Maia Shelby is a visual and public artist from West Bridgewater, MA. Her practice explores alternative processes and waste, reimagining materials to highlight the importance of natural pigments. Inspired by life's ebb and resilience, she examines coexistence in human-dominated landscapes. A meditative approach allows the materials to speak for itself. In this piece, she uses handmade natural charcoal pigment gathered from the Fish Hoek and Glencairn Mountain Fires in South Africa in December 2023.

"This is my first experience having a work showcased in Boston and having it at City Hall warms my heart," Hay shared. "Knowing that it's in a space that is open and accessible to the public is incredibly important to my artistic practice."

Thank you to all of the participating artists in the Fay Chandler Emerging Art Exhibition, and all those who displayed their artwork in City Hall this year. You have lent curiosity, joy, and meaning to the thousands of visitors and City employees that pass through City Hall each day.

In the new year, the galleries at Boston City Hall will continue to support the vibrant local art scene while bringing art to public spaces where it is accessible to all.

"Art is an incredibly meaningful part of our world — whether explicitly or subliminally, art is a reflection of our ideas and feelings about life," said Freddy Thomas, the Allston-based artist who won a Juror's Choice Award.

"It's important to use our voices as artists no matter how big or small, and it's reassuring that the city not only feels that way as well but creates a platform to amplify those voices."

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