Sharita Towne named Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts
June 03, 2019
Congratulations to faculty member Sharita Towne who has been selected as one of the Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts for 2019. This recognition comes on the heels of Towne being awarded a Creative Capital award with her collaborator Lisa Bates for their Black Life Experiential Research Group project.
Towne is a multidisciplinary artist who works in video, printmaking, and community based projects. At PNCA, she teaches in Media Arts, teaches the BFA Thesis Critique course, and mentors thesis students.
Towne was recently artist-in-residence at PNCA's Watershed Center for Fine Art Publishing and Research.
The Black Life Experiential Research Group, which recently presented the project HERE || Humboldt at the Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade. For the project, Towne and Bates worked with students from Jefferson High School and members of the community to develop a project that, "centers Black life of the past, present and future as integral to the community’s fabric."
Towne is also the co-founder of URe:AD Press (United Re:Public of the African Diaspora), and performs in the "post-colonial conceptual karaoke band," Weird Allan Kaprow. URe:AD Press is an ongoing collaborative print and media project for Afro-diasporic audiences, that produces video installations, screenprinted ephemera, and self published books of Afro-diasporic inquiry.
Towne holds a BA from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies and Art Practice, and an MFA from Portland State University in Contemporary Art Practices. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from Art Matters, Fulbright Program, the Precipice Award, Calligram Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Ford Family Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
The Ford Family Foundation awards up to five unrestricted Hallie Ford Fellowships in the Visual Arts per calendar year, each in the amount of $25,000, to Oregon visual artists who have demonstrated a depth of sophisticated practice and potential for significant future accomplishment. Their work furthers the conversation of contemporary art in the 21st century. These fellowships honor the late Hallie Ford, co-founder of The Ford Family Foundation, who left a legacy based on a lifelong interest in and support of the visual arts.