The American artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt have been revealed because the winners of this 12 months’s Heinz Awards for the Arts on Tuesday (16 September). This marks the thirtieth version of the awards, that are bestowed by the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Household Basis and include an unrestricted money prize of $250,000 for every artist. The awards are named for the US Senator John Heinz (1938-91) and honour people working within the arts, economic system and setting. A ceremony honouring this 12 months’s winners in all three classes will probably be held in Pittsburgh subsequent month.
The 2 artists are extensively celebrated for his or her work in very totally different media, with Packer working primarily as a painter (and sometimes in drawing) whereas Watt’s observe is extra materially wide-ranging however rooted in her heritage as a member of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians.
Packer, who was born in Philadelphia in 1984, earned her BFA from the Tyler College of Artwork at Temple College and her MFA from Yale College, has developed a particular model of boldly vibrant, texturally fluid figurative portray. Her observe spans nonetheless lifes and portraits; the latter specifically have a psychological depth and sense of intimacy that may be fairly haunting, with figures alternately seeming to dissolve into their environment or radiate off the canvas with chromatic depth.
Jennifer Packer, Eric, 2012-13 Photograph: Jason Wyche; courtesy of the artist, Corvi-Mora, London and Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York
“Storytelling is on the middle of how we perceive ourselves and every little thing else,” Packer stated in a press release. “Most tales, no matter their significance, are held solely within the physique or in language, they usually disappear when that physique is misplaced. I care very deeply about many issues and am sure that few will attempt to include them in the way in which I do know they should be held.”
She has had solo exhibits on the Whitney Museum of American Artwork in New York, the Museum of Up to date Artwork in Los Angeles, the Renaissance Society in Chicago and the Serpentine Gallery in London. She is represented by Sikkema Malloy Jenkins in New York and Corvi-Mora in London.
“Jennifer’s work is without delay infused with magnificence and grief,” Teresa Heinz, John’s widow and the chairman of the Heinz Household Basis, stated in a press release. “Her work bear witness to our unfolding historical past, compelling us to maneuver past mere reflection to a spot of modified understanding and respectful connection to her topics and their tales.”
Watt, who was born in 1967 in Seattle and is predicated in Portland, Oregon, takes inspiration from Indigenous traditions and proto-feminist Haudenosaunee teachings to make works that vary from monumental metal sculpture to delicate textiles incorporating Native American beads and jingles. Considered one of her best-known sequence, the Blanket Tales sculptures, incorporates donated blankets which are folded, stacked and generally punctuated by giant metal beams. The ensuing monuments meld private tales with the formal language of contemporary structure and Minimalist sculpture.
“Many blankets, significantly wool blankets and quilts, are handed down by generations,” Watt stated in a press release. “We’re acquired into this world in blankets and in some ways depart in a blanket, and in between we’re consistently imprinting on them—worn areas, stained bits and mended elements are like magnificence marks and a part of the thing’s historical past.”
Marie Watt, Untitled (Sapling & Flint, Twin Columns), 2020 Marc Strauss Gallery
Watt had a solo exhibition final 12 months on the Carnegie Museum of Artwork in Pittsburgh. She has additionally had solo institutional exhibits on the Blanton Museum of Artwork in Austin, Texas, the Buffalo Historical past Museum in western New York and the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe. She is represented by Marc Straus in New York, Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco and PDX Up to date Artwork in Portland. Final week it was revealed that she has been commissioned to collaborate with Nick Cave on a brand new work for the Obama Presidential Middle in Chicago.
Teresa Heinz praised Watt for “her thought-provoking work that graciously permits us entry to Indigenous traditions, tradition and histories and to the appliance of that collective knowledge to modern life”. She added, in a press release: “Marie’s artwork brings us pleasure, and her welcoming observe of participating the neighborhood is a mannequin and inspiration for creating lasting intergenerational connections.”
Along with Packer and Watt, the Heinz Household Basis honoured two recipients every within the fields of economic system and the setting. Over their 30 editions so far since 1993, the Heinz Awards have now been bestowed on a complete of 186 honorees, with greater than $32m distributed. Visible artists recognised in previous years embrace Jennie C. Jones and Gala Porras-Kim in 2024, Kevin Beasley and Roberto Lugo in 2023, Cauleen Smith and vanessa german in 2022, and Sanford Biggers and Tanya Aguiñiga in 2021. With its unrestricted purse of $250,000, the Heinz Award is among the many most financially vital prizes obtainable to modern artists.
