2019 San Francisco Artadia Awardees Announced

Artadia is pleased to announce the Awardees for the 2019 San Francisco Artadia Awards: Mike Henderson and Angela Hennessy. The San Francisco Foundation Visual Arts Award is presented to Hennessy. As the 2019 San Francisco Artadia Awardees, Henderson and Hennessy will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funds, as well as access to the ongoing benefits of the Artadia Awards program.

In the first round of jurying, Essence Harden, Independent Curator, Writer, PH.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley, CA; Amie Siegel, Artist, New York; and Diya Vij, Associate Curator, Public Programs, The High Line, New York, selected five Finalists: Mike Henderson, Angela Hennessy, Ranu Mukherjee, Dionne Lee, and Sam Vernon. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Assistant Curator of American Art, Cantor Arts Center joined Harden for the second round of evaluations. The jurors conducted studio visits with the five Finalists to determine the Awardees.

Of the Awardees, Harden and Pitchamarn Alexander noted: "Mike Henderson's striking nonrepresentational paintings belong to a long history of Bay Area abstraction. His thickly layered and boldly expressive works are undeniably arresting, often evoking a visceral response in the viewer. Though his practice is rooted in embracing chance and improvisation, the final products of his process are so elegant and fully realized they belie such unplanned origins. This award is meant to offer well-deserved recognition of his impressive thirty-year career."

"Angela Hennessy's materially diverse practice elegantly investigates subjects like mourning, ritual, and womanhood. By using hair as her primary material, Hennessy is able to explore its metaphorical and political relationship to blackness in compelling and original ways. Her sculptures are a powerful representation of an artist working at the intersection of total technical expertise and conceptual clarity."