The Gibbes Museum and Society 1858's Prize for Contemporary Southern Art is awarded to an artist whose work contributes to a new understanding of art in the South. Presented annually, the Prize recognizes the highest level of artistic achievement and welcomes applications from artist working across any media. Artists from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia are encouraged and eligible to apply. Previous winners have subsequently received awards from the Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Additionally, winning artists' work has been received into the permanent collections of The National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Gibbes Museum of Art. The extraordinary multi-disciplinary artist, Demond Melancon, was the recipient of the 2024 Prize, receiving a cash award of $10,000 and whose work will be on display at the Gibbes for a full year, beginning February 2025.
In addition to the monetary award, artwork will be chosen by the Gibbes Curatorial Team, in collaboration with the artist, for display in the Mary Jackson Modern and Contemporary Galleries for the duration of the year following the winner’s announcement. Applications are accepted exclusively through this website.
The 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art is presented by Society 1858, a member auxiliary group of the Gibbes Museum of Art. This group of dynamic young professionals supports the Gibbes Museum with social and educational programs tailored for up-and-coming art patrons. To learn more about membership in Society 1858, please click here.
For general questions about the 1858 prize, please contact Jordan Sprueill, Associate Curator of Contemporary Initiatives and Visiting Artists at [email protected].
Melancon pioneered an emerging contemporary art practice using the same beading techniques he’s been refining over the past 30 years in the Black Masking Culture.
READ MORERibeiro's patchworked wooden mosaics become a call and response echoing through time, rooted in fabric and wood.
READ MOREApproached through a lens of reordering and discovery, Trosclair’s work explores the liminal space between development and deconstruction.
READ MORERoland has an interdisciplinary practice that deals with concepts of innocence, identity, and community, reimagining their social and political implications.
READ MOREApproached through a lens of reordering and discovery, Trosclair's work explores the liminal space between development and deconstruction.
READ MOREWith no formal art training, Hiromi Moneyhun has evolved a unique, homegrown artistic voice that combines traditional and modern Japanese art forms.
READ MORERaheleh Filsoofi is a collector of soil and sound, an itinerant artist, feminist curator, and community service advocate.
READ MORERoland has an interdisciplinary practice that deals with concepts of innocence, identity, and community, reimagining their social and political implications.
READ MOREDedeaux-Norris is a mixed-media artist who employs painting, fiber, performance, video, and music to explore the somatic impacts of racial, gender, and class.
READ MOREStephanie J. Woods’ body of work examines performative behavior and the cognitive effects of forced cultural assimilation through multimedia works.
READ MOREAdebunmi Gbadebo creates sculptures, prints and paper using Black hair sourced from the diaspora, along with historical and cultural imbued materials.
READ MOREEdison Peñafiel's singular style integrates video and multimedia installation to create surreal echoes of our world, environments that translate experience.
READ MOREA North Carolina-based artist, Hayes makes works - woodcuts, sculptures, and installations from found materials that draw on social and economic themes.
READ MORELouisiana-based artist Jennifer Shaw's work is based on both a world observed, and a world constructed, often focusing on the sphere of her immediate surroundings.
READ MOREGeorgia-based artist Namwon Choi's drawings and paintings capture the spatial and temporal condition of in-betweenness.
READ MOREGeorgia-based ceramicist, Donté K. Hayes explores themes in Afrofuturism, an imagined future which critiques historical and cultural events.
READ MORENorth Carolina-based painter, Damian Stamer captures the impermanence of structures that stand as remnants of American industries.
READ MORESouth Carolina-based artist Herb Parker creates nature-based installations which enhance the viewer's perception of the environment.
READ MORENorth Carolina-based artist, Martha Clippenger work blurs the lines between painting and sculpture, fine art and folk, craft and design.
READ MOREMichi Meko's paintings and sculptures focus on the African American experience of navigating public spaces while remaining buoyant within them.
READ MORELouisiana-based artist Stephanie Patton employs humor in her multi-media works, often using it as a device to bring attention to critical issues.
READ MOREA native of St. Stephen, South Carolina, Leo Twiggs works in batik, exploring family history, cultural heritage, and how the past is manifest in contemporary life.
READ MOREFor more than 30 years, photographer Birney Imes has captured the people, places, and culture of his native Mississippi.
READ MOREA native of Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s artistic practice combines diverse media including photography, performance, painting, sculpture, film, and video.
READ MOREStephen Hayes explores the history of race relations in America through a variety of media, including sculpture, fiber, video, blacksmithing, and installation work.
READ MOREPhotographer Susan Worsham was born in Richmond, Virginia. Her recent work focuses on her family.
READ MOREBorn in Columbus, Georgia, Bartlett is acclaimed for his large-scale paintings that explore American life and cultural heritage.
READ MORENorth Carolina painter, Beverly McIver uses bold color and gesture to create portraits that examine racial, gender, social, and occupational identity.
READ MOREEbony G. Patterson investigates identity in contemporary society, particularly ideas concerning visibility and invisibility of those who are deemed disenfranchised.
READ MOREPaul Stephen Benjamin is a multidisciplinary artist who creates multi-layered works that incorporate history, text, and popular culture.
READ MORESuzanne Jackson combines painting, collage, and sculpture techniques to create large-scale abstract work exploring the spirit of the American cultural legacies.
READ MOREAlicia Henry explores social relationships through depictions of the human figure shown in isolation and also figures interacting with one another.
READ MOREJiha Moon's work combines diverse cultural influences, including Asian landscape painting, calligraphy, and imagery from Western popular culture.
READ MOREJosé Bedia creates paintings, sculpture, and mixed-media installations.
READ MOREMichelle Erickson’s work draws compelling comparisons between the past and present-day social issues.
READ MOREStacey Kirby creates performances set within site-specific installations activated by viewer participation.
READ MOREToyin Ojih Odutola’s portraits explore skin as a topography revealing time, place, memory, and an ever-changing identity.
READ MOREDeborah Luster's photographs are powerful and haunting. Her recent body of work captures desolate landscapes in New Orleans where murders have occurred.
READ MOREAldwyth creates intricate collages and assemblages, often monumental in scale, from found objects, appropriated images, text, and other elements.
READ MORESculptor Andrea Keys Connell creates figurative works that challenge conventional notions of monuments, statuary, and figurines.
READ MOREEbony G. Patterson investigates the complex relationships between gender, politics, beauty, race, and ritual in contemporary Jamaican culture.
READ MOREGeorge Jenne is a video artist who combines moving images with the spoken word to create uniquely narrative films.
READ MOREKevin Jerome Everson’s films utilize both scripted and documentary footage to examine the everyday lives of working class African Americans.
READ MORESonya Clark uses objects such as cloth, hair, and combs to give voice to the complexity of American identity and history.
READ MOREAndré Leon Gray works in a variety of media to examine the impact of history and memory on present day power structures and social hierarchies.
READ MOREPainter Damian Stamer depicts barns, abandoned buildings, and other vernacular structures of the rural south.
READ MOREJackson Martin’s artistic practice entails an interdisciplinary approach to sculpture, installation, and photography.
READ MOREArtist Jason Mitcham combines painting and stop-motion animation to investigate suburbia, modern ruins, and temporality within the landscape.
READ MOREJim Arendt creates narrative paintings, sculpture, and installations that investigate how individual lives are affected by transitions in economic structures.
READ MOREStacy Lynn Waddell creates work that explores American history, culture, and the ways individual consciousness is formed through generations.
READ MOREJohn Westmark is a painter whose large-scale works incorporate store-bought paper sewing patterns collaged directly on the surface.
READ MOREAldwyth creates intricate collages and assemblages, often monumental in scale, from found objects, appropriated images, text, and other elements.
READ MOREOften posed in unexpected ways, Trotman’s figures convey the humor, anxiety, and even absurdity of life as an office professional.
READ MOREBrian Dettmer is known for his detailed and innovative sculptures created from books and other forms of antiquated media.
READ MOREYoung Kim creates site-specific installations from salt and earth that are inherently fragile and temporal, symbolic of our own existence on earth.
READ MOREPatrick Dougherty is a sculptor who works with twigs and branches to create site-specific installations.
READ MOREBo Bartlett is acclaimed for his large-scale paintings that explore American life and cultural heritage.
READ MOREDeborah Luster's photographs are powerful and haunting. Her recent body of work captures desolate landscapes in New Orleans where murders have occurred.
READ MOREElliott Hundley creates paintings, sculptures, and assemblages with richly-layered surfaces.
READ MOREJiha Moon's work combines diverse cultural influences, including Asian landscape painting, calligraphy, and imagery from Western popular culture.
READ MOREPinky Bass works with pinhole photography, embracing the imperfections and unusual perspective of the medium.
READ MORERadcliffe Bailey is best known for his mixed media works and site-specific installations that explore his personal background and the history of African Americans.
READ MOREAldwyth creates intricate collages and assemblages, often monumental in scale, from found objects, appropriated images, text, and other elements.
READ MOREJoyce Scott addresses issues of gender, race, and class struggles through a variety of techniques including weaving, quilting, beadwork, and glasswork.
READ MORESally Mann is best known for her intimate photographs of her family and her unique portrayal of the southern landscape.
READ MOREWilliam Christenberry has used his drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography as a means to document his home state of Alabama.
READ MOREWillie Birch is a painter, sculptor, and draftsman whose work draws upon African American culture and tradition in his native New Orleans.
READ MOREStephen Marc is a photographer who creates digitally-manipulated montages that explore his Southern roots and interpret American history.
READ MOREEdward Rice is a painter best known for his stark depictions of architectural details.
READ MOREKathryn Refi is a conceptual artist who collects data from daily life as a means to study the world in an objective manner.
READ MORELonnie Holley creates found object assemblages and acrylic paintings with intensely personal meanings.
READ MOREFor nearly thirty years, Mike Smith has photographed the rural landscape of East Tennessee.
READ MOREA filmmaker from Charlotte, North Carolina, Ross McElwee has made seven feature-length documentaries and several shorter films.
READ MOREJeff Whetstone was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and has been photographing and writing about the relationship between humans and their environment since 1990.
READ MOREHenri Schindler is an acknowledged authority on Mardi Gras history.
READ MOREJose Alvarez incorporates unique media into his work including feathers, porcupine quills, and crystals.
READ MORERadcliffe Bailey is best known for his mixed media works and site-specific installations that explore his personal background and the history of African Americans.
READ MOREWilliam Christenberry has used his drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography as a means to document his home state of Alabama.
READ MORE