[Pictured: Minh Nguyen]

Centrum is pleased to announce that six Pacific Northwest artists have been names as 2017 Emerging Artist Residents.

The 2017 artists selected for Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency are Aruni Dharmakirthi, Benjamin Gale-Schreck, Mario Lemafa, Anna Mlasowsky, Minh Nguyen, and Melanie Stevens.

Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency is an initiative to support artists at the beginning of their career trajectory. Centrum invites a cohort of six visual artists from the Northwest region to be in residence during the month of October each year. The artists are provided with housing, studio space and a stipend, while they spend the month creating new work or refining existing work. This program is supported with grants from The Maurer Family Foundation, Sally Warren and Jeff Jackson, and Lucy and Charlie Hanson.

“We are so proud to announce our EAR artists for 2017. This program has been growing exponentially since we initiated it in 2014,” said Martha Worthley, Emerging Artist Program Manager. “We’ve had top notch advisers and jurors from all parts of the Pacific Northwest. Our EAR program makes a significant difference in the developing careers of emerging visual artists.”

Now in its fourth year, the program begins in February by asking educators and cultural producers from Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington to nominate artists who are then invited to apply for the residency.

The jurors for the Centrum’s 2017 Emerging Artist Residencys were: Amanda Donnan, curator of Seattle University’s art galleries and, as an adjunct faculty member in the Art and Art History departmen; Laura Heit, a Portland-based multidisciplinary artist, and 2016 Oregon Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow; Roy Tomlinson, a painter and multi-disciplinary artist who taught for many years at the California College of the Arts before moving to Portland, Oregon and joining the faculty of the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Learn more about the Emerging Artist Residents and jurors.