Artist Professional Development Grants | Round 28 Recipients

Great Meadows Foundation Awards Grants to 16 Kentucky Artists

Latest grant cycle marks more than $1.25 million in funding given to artists in the state

 

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, July 28, 2025 – The Great Meadows Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of its 28th round of Artist Professional Development Grants, awarding 16 grants to visual artists across the Kentucky region. These competitive grants are designed to support travel and research opportunities that strengthen artistic practices, deepen critical engagement, and foster lasting professional connections beyond the state.

Through this round of funding, selected artists will travel to major exhibitions, attend professional conferences, and participate in residencies that will directly impact their creative development. By encouraging Kentucky-based artists to connect with the broader national and international contemporary art community, these grants expand the visibility and ambition of the region’s visual arts landscape.

“The Artist Professional Development Grant program is rooted in the belief that engagement with national and international conversations in the contemporary art world is essential to artistic growth,” said Julien Robson, Director of the Great Meadows Foundation. “I’m continually inspired by the curiosity and drive of Kentucky artists, and proud to support the travel and activities that help them evolve their practices and enrich our artistic community.”

Since the launch of the Artist Professional Development Grant program in 2016, Great Meadows Foundation has awarded more than $1.25 million in grants to more than 250 Kentucky artists and curators, enabling travel to more than 140 cities in 40 countries, investing in the region’s creative future by nurturing cross-cultural exchange and professional advancement.

More information about the recipients and their travel activities, submitted by the artists, can be found below.

 

Great Meadows Foundation Artist Professional Development Grants: Round 28 Recipients

 

Lucy Azubuike

Pronouns: She/Her

Website: www.lucyazubuikeart.co

Instagram: @lazubu20

City: Frankfort, Kentucky

Where will you be traveling? Ghana, West Africa

What will you be traveling for? 

I will be traveling to Ghana for a research and studio visit with world-renowned sculptor Professor El Anatsui. This journey will also include visits to the studios of contemporary Ghanaian artists such as Tei Huagie, Theresah Ankomah, Lois Selasie Arde-Acquah, Rita Mawuena Benissan, and Frederick Bamfo. These engagements aim to facilitate artistic exchange and expand the conceptual depth of my practice through cross-cultural dialogue and creative immersion.

Short summary of your art practice?

I am a multimedia artist working across photography, sculpture, performance, and installation. My practice centers nature—particularly trees—as metaphors for resilience, healing, and spiritual memory. Drawing on ecofeminism and indigenous knowledge systems, I engage viewers in conversations around identity, environmental consciousness, and cultural continuity. My work invites a shift in perception: a deeper appreciation of self and others through communion with nature. I believe that nature is a mirror—when you find her, you find yourself. In that discovery lies joy, healing, and the recognition of the magic within.

Inspirations for your art practice?

My practice is deeply inspired by nature, African spirituality, and the symbolic power of trees. Artists like El Anatsui and Ana Mendieta influence my exploration of land, identity, and environmental concerns. I draw from ecofeminist and indigenous philosophies that view nature as sacred and interconnected with human life. Storytelling, proverbs, and ancestral memory also play a key role, grounding my work in cultural wisdom while pushing the boundaries of form and material.

 

Andrew Cenci

Pronouns: He/Him

Website:  andrewcenci.com

Instagram:  @Andrew_Cenci

Current City: Jeffersonville, IN

Where will you be traveling? Tokyo, Japan

What will you be traveling for?

This trip will center around the Art Week Tokyo & The Tokyo Biennale during the late fall of this year. The Tokyo Biennale has a number of different events and workshops and Art Week Tokyo will be focused around an exhibition at Okura Museum of Art.

Short summary of your art practice? 

I am a photographic artist, and have contributed editorial work to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and more. Myself and a fellow photographer have started a small community called, “Kentucky Fried Photo” and host quarterly photo book meet-ups to help foster an environment where local photographers can come and exchange ideas. I recently completed a residency with the University of Kentucky History Department and School of Visual Arts as part of their Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative, working on a body of work that explores the intersections of the enslaved people of Kentucky and Bourbon.

Inspirations for your art practice? 

The rich legacy of black & white photography and the photobook in Japan deeply inspires my creative journey. Influential figures like Daidō Moriyama, Shigeru Yamazaki, Michio Yamauchi, Jōji Hashiguchi, and Hiroh Kikai have significantly influenced my starting a new body of work. I also am greatly inspired by photographers Mark Steinmetz, Dawoud Bey, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Alec Soth, Andre Wagner, Juan Brenner, Kristine Potter and many more. I love the photobook and the print, and all of these photographers  have had some influence on my current practice.

 

Natalie Christensen

Pronouns: she/her

Website:  https://nataliechristensenphoto.com/ 

Instagram:  @natalie_santafe

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? London, England

What will you be traveling for?

My trip to London is designed to support the ongoing development of my collaborative work with artist Jim Eyre, which explores the psychological and aesthetic dimensions of contemporary urban environments through the use of photography, collage, and site-specific installations. Our practice questions how identity and presence shift in a screen-based world shaped by ephemeral content and constant image exchange. My goal is to deepen this inquiry by engaging directly with artists, archives, and exhibitions that resonate with our themes of identity, public space, and architectural context.

Short summary of your art practice? 

I am a photographer interested in finding psychological symbolism within the urban landscape. My work focuses on exploring the often-overlooked, mundane peripheral scenes that casual observers tend to miss. My photography finds its subject matter in commonplace architecture and streetscapes. In my work, I’m drawn to capture scenes that embody internal states of dilemma: encounters between seemingly opposing forces, objects that run parallel but never meet, moments of despair inextricably combined with fleeting illumination. 

Inspirations for your art practice?

For over 25 years, I worked as a psychotherapist and have been significantly influenced by the theories of psychologist Carl Jung. This influence naturally finds its way into my work, where shadows and psychological metaphors take center stage. I use my camera to isolate cityscapes into isolated tableaus, reducing the imagery to color fields, planes of geometry and interplays of light and shadow. The symbols and spaces in my images invite exploration of a rich world concealed from consciousness, encouraging contemplation of narratives and scenes that may not have remarkable history, yet resonate with something deeply familiar in our experience. 

 

John Day

Pronouns: He/Him

Website:  Johndaystudio.com

Instagram:  @jgd.art

City: Georgetown, IN

Where will you be traveling? Berlin, Germany

What will you be traveling for? 

Gerhard Richter: 100 Works for Berlin and the 13th Berlin Biennale

Short summary of your art practice? 

I am a painter, currently working with historic and alternative photographic processes and new media. My work explores images as record and visual language, confronting memory and absence as they endure the passage of time amidst the proliferation of our current visual culture.

Inspirations for your art practice?

Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Bay Area Figurative Movement (Henrietta Berk and David Park)

 

Tad DeSanto

Pronouns: he/him/his

Instagram: @taddesanto

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? Baltimore, MD and New York City

What will you be traveling for? 

In Baltimore I will be visiting the American Visionary Museum, which has a huge collection of work created by self-taught artists. I will also visit the Walters Art Museum which has numerous paintings by Matisse. In NYC I will go to see the Rashid Johnson exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum along with visits to MoMA PS1, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Art.

Short summary of your art practice? 

I consider myself a self-taught “outsider artist.” I primarily do mixed media work on Masonite. I also create assemblages and collages. Most often my work evokes a personal memory or has something to say about the social/political mess we’re experiencing now.

Inspirations for your art practice?

I would say Basquiat and Picasso are my main inspirations but I am influenced by all that I see whether it’s graffiti on the street or a masterpiece in a museum.

 

Hannah (Don’t) DeWitt

Pronouns: she/they

Website:  hannahdewitt.com

Instagram:  @hannahdontdewitt

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? New York City and Philadelphia

What will you be traveling for? 

I will be traveling to view performance artworks in NYC during the tail end of the Performa Biennial 2025. Afterwards, I will take the train to Philly to view art with a focus on experimental and artist-run spaces.

Short summary of your art practice?

I make interdisciplinary studio art focusing on performance and interactive experience. The personal and confessional nature of my work breaks down walls and forms new connective tissue between myself and my viewer. At times working with dark humor and catharsis, I offer an opportunity to witness both pain and its transformation. I often use art to handle subject matter that is hard to watch but even harder to survive without an outlet for expression. Motivated by a need, I make art because it is my way of processing, coping with, and testifying about the human condition.

Inspirations for your art practice? 

Some of my inspirations are performance artists like Karen Finley, Carolee Schneemann, Annie Sprinkle, Linda Montano, and Tehching Hsieh, and other artists like Nan Goldin, Jillian Mayer, Louise Bourgeois, and Kiki Smith. Musically, I look to artists like Shauna Dean Cokeland and Kimya Dawson for their clever lyrical way of transforming emotional outpour. I also take inspiration from burlesque, campy horror movies, choice-based video games (especially pixel horror games), once-used staples on telephone poles, sharpie callouts and confessions on bar bathroom walls, hardy flowers and blooming weeds in unlikely places, and conversations with strangers.

 

Shaylee Hall

Pronouns: She/her/hers

Instagram:   shaylee.hall1

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? London and Paris

What will you be traveling for?

I’m at a stage of deep self-discovery, and my painting practice is evolving with me. This travel is a personal and professional turning point, an opportunity to explore how other contemporary artists express this growth and vulnerability through visual language. London and Paris are global hubs for contemporary art; immersing myself in these scenes will expose me to a range of curatorial approaches and artistic strategies that I can’t access locally. I’m seeking new models for how artists like me, whose work is rooted in personal symbolism, race, queerness, and emotional transformation, fit into larger artistic dialogues.

Short summary of your art practice?

My work is about the journey of accepting parts of myself that I was once taught to hide. Growing up surrounded by messages that instilled shame around my identity, I struggled to create deeply personal art. Now, my practice reclaims that space through visual storytelling. 

I use objects and landscapes as containers for these themes, incorporating recurring elements such as buildings, toys, and trees. In some of my paintings, playful objects like rubber ducks, plush animals, and childhood motifs represent the self. Their pyramid-shaped compositions reference a personal “hierarchy of needs,” placing me at the edge of self-actualization.

Inspirations for your art practice?

My work asks: What does it mean to accept what you were taught to reject? I’m drawn to the emotional disorientation of identity confusion, especially when there’s no roadmap, as I lacked guidance about my identity growing up. Even so, my work often embraces irony and humor. Titles become part of the language, inviting viewers to engage without taking things too seriously.

Artists Mickalene Thomas, Eve Mansdorf, Kerry James Marshall, Danielle McKinney, and Michaela Yearwood-Dan influence my work. Their approaches to color, texture, and symbolic storytelling profoundly inform my exploration of abstraction, representation, and the fluidity of identity.

 

Steve Heine
Pronouns: he/him

Website: craniumglass.squarespace.com  

Instagram: @craniumglass

City: Louisville

Where will you be traveling? Venice, Italy

What will you be traveling for? 

I’ll travel for six days in October to attend the Biennale Architettura 2025. At the Biennale, I’ll engage in a lively and enriching conversation centered on architecture. A confluence of germane and extraordinary ideas in Venice will inspire my art practice and creative vision. This year’s Biennale—exhibited across the threatened, resilient urban fabric of Venice—offers me a remarkable opportunity to see compelling, new work at a broad range of scales; to imagine fresh possibilities for my own work; and to re-envision my role as an artist in a discordant, turbulent world.

Short summary of your art practice?

Although I’m a graduate of the University of Kentucky’s College of Architecture, I’ve never practiced “traditional” architecture. I do see my spare, reductive constructions, however, as a kind of small-scale architecture. I work with layers of thin-gauge, laser-cut steel. I often use small magnets in my artwork—as both an elegant connection of steel to steel and a visual design element. My work is a response to the relentless noise of the world, to its incessant chatter. I believe there’s joy in work reduced to its essentials. My artwork has become a meditation of sorts on noise—and stillness.

Inspirations for your art practice?

I embrace the ethos of modernist architect Mies van der Rohe: one where less can be more and god is in the details. My work is often inspired by large-scale architecture [say, Corbusier’s Villa Savoye]; but, also by the textiles of Bauhaus artist Anni Albers; the thoughtful, highly resolved abstraction of minimalists Carmen Herrera, Ellsworth Kelly and Donald Judd; and a recent discovery for me: the architectonic work of the Systems Group of artists. My work is a response to the relentless noise of the world, to its incessant chatter.

 

Uhma Janus

Pronouns: She/Her

Website:  www.uhmajanus.com

Instagram:   @uhma.artst

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? Copenhagen, Denmark and Helsinki, Finland

What will you be traveling for?

I’ll attend the Helsinki Biennial 2025 that, under its current theme “Shelter,” draws attention to all the other-than-human living and non-living Beings within the Biosphere. Most notably, I’m interested in the work of Gunzi Homström, Regina de Miguel, Sara Bjarland, and Olafur Eliasson. I’ll visit several contemporary exhibits. Among them, I’m most interested in the exhibits featuring the work of Emma Talbot, Robert Longo, Eva Pade, Frederik Næblerød, and Maija Lavonen. I’ll meet with the Helsinki-based artists Camilla Vuorenmaa, Eeva-Riita Eerola, and Haruka Kashima.

Short summary of your art practice?

I make medium to large scale paintings of acrylic ink on paper that are the representation of my perceptions and my reality sensemaking as abstract landscapes of a phenomenon with its depicted granularity. 

My art practice is rooted in the fully-aware and spontaneous process of line creation. By repeating such elements with variations, I get to produce the microscopic tapestry for the complex landscape within the emergent macroscopic patterns that evoke the natural world in its biological or atomic compositions, registering too the intrinsic dynamism by which life and matter, in their constitution, are energized with.

Inspirations for your art practice? 

I’m drawn to understand how reality is made and how it works. I majored in theoretical particle Physics and I have learnt about Biology to understand the microscopic level. For the macroscopic one, I’ve been interested in the systems theory approach that focuses on the relationality among constituent parts to understand how a system is.

Generically, my paintings can be understood as the phenomenological imprints of different types of phenomena with reference to topics of interest in Physics, Biology, Physiology, Psychology, Philosophy, and Consciousness.

 

Jessica Page

Pronouns: She/Her

Website:  jpagephotography.com

Instagram:  @jessicapageartistphotographer

City: Lexington

Where will you be traveling? London, England & Edinburgh, Scotland

What will you be traveling for?

I will be exploring a variety of contemporary art galleries and museums, such as Tate Modern to see Do Ho Suh’s Walk the House installation and Stills Centre for Photography to view Matthew Arthur Williams new work. This trip will support my ongoing interest in immersive, media-rich storytelling across photography, weaving, sculpture, and video and expand my own photo-based, interdisciplinary practice.

Short summary of your art practice?

My practice is rooted in analog and digital photography and expands into wallpaper, fabric, ceramics, weaving, sculpture, and video to challenge the boundaries of contemporary photography. I’m drawn to materials with familial, emotional and historical weight such as those tied to domestic spaces. Objects that carry memory, texture, and care. Through themes of home, identity, and material history, I blend real and imagined narratives. I see home not as a fixed place but as complex layered stories, silences, and sensory memory. By using personal archives and fabricated objects, I explore how identity is constructed, remembered, and inherited.

Inspirations for your art practice?

I draw inspiration from contemporary artists whose practices resonate with my interests in narrative, material, and space. Sophie Calle influences my approach to storytelling, self-reflection, and viewer engagement. Igshaan Adams inspires my material exploration and the spatial mapping of identity and belonging. Haegue Yang’s inventive use of domestic materials, light, and sculptural form informs my own interdisciplinary approach. Kyle Meyer’s woven portraits combining photography and patterned fabric influence my techniques of layering and hybridity. Anicka Yi’s experimental video projections onto unconventional surfaces expand my thinking around sensory experience and how moving images can inhabit unexpected material forms.

 

Sara Olshansky

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Website: saraolshansky.com 

Instagram: @s_olshanksy

City: Louisville

Where will you be traveling? Mexico City and Oaxaca

What will you be traveling for?

I will be the artist in residence at The Ant Project for two months starting this September. 

Short summary of your art practice?

I paint multi-layered landscapes that challenge linear time and disassemble pictorial space. The resultant interplay among what’s hidden and visible mimics deconstruction of the natural world. Instead of simulating depth, the picture plane frames passages of time as it “forgets” the concealed and “remembers” the exposed. This renegotiation establishes hierarchy, or contest, within the composition. Situated along a suspension between what remains and what might be, my work suggests how the climate crisis alters the planet more quickly than ever before.

 

Tatiana Rathke

Pronouns: she/her

Website:  www.tatianarathke.com

Instagram:  @tatianarathke

City: Louisville, Ky

Where will you be traveling? San Francisco, California

What will you be traveling for?

I will travel to San Francisco in August 2025 to attend the Ruth Asawa retrospective at SFMOMA, Asawa’s first posthumous exhibition in her home city. I will also visit other exhibitions and studios to connect with local artists, explore how motherhood informs creative practice, and deepen my understanding of place, community, and representation in art. My itinerary includes meetings with working artist-parents, visits to the De Young Museum, COL Gallery, and the Good Ship Dodo, to inform my current work on the intersection of motherhood, abstraction, and home.

Short summary of your art practice?

I am a multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice explores identity, caretaking, eco-philosophy, and the visual unconscious. With a background in photography, my current work focuses on small-scale digital paintings made during early motherhood—intimate, layered gestures built from photographic memory and spontaneous mark-making. I work between abstraction and representation to explore materiality, memory, and domestic life.

Inspirations for your art practice?

I draw inspiration from feminist texts, eco-philosophy, and artists like Ruth Asawa, whose work integrates motherhood, activism, and art. I’m influenced by visual artists working across media, artists who embed care into their process, and movements that prioritize embodied making. Nature, memory, and place also play central roles in shaping my creative language.

 

Rebecca (Web) Richards

Pronouns: she/they

Website:  www.thewebhasnoweaver.com

Instagram: @thewebhasnoweaver

City: Louisville

Where will you be traveling? London, Zurich, Berlin

What will you be traveling for? 

I will be visiting exhibitions focused on large-scale fabric installation, sculpture, and performance, while also connecting with artists whose practices and interests align with my own.

Short summary of your art practice?  

I am a multidisciplinary visual artist working primarily in wearable sculpture, where fashion, performance, and installation converge. My work explores fashion as both a tool for self-expression and a symbol of systemic harm—interrogating its entanglement with waste, labor, and rigid ideals. I create sculptural garments using secondhand materials that transform the body into a site of resistance, celebrating fluid identity, queerness, and excess.

Inspirations for your art practice?

The ways we use adornment to transcend our bodies, craft our identities, and defy societal expectations have always fascinated me. Coming of age in the underground NYC nightlife scene, I was profoundly shaped by the maximalist, assemblage-rich ethos of club kid culture — a spirit that continues to fuel my work. I am also inspired by my spiritual connection to spiders and the webs they weave, a symbol of divine femininity, creation, and resilience. 

 

Rachel Singel

Pronouns: she/her

Website: www.rachelsingel.com

Instagram: @rachelsingel

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia 

What will you be traveling for?

The Helsinki Biennial and Tallinn Print Triennial 

Short summary of your art practice? 

Beyond bringing attention to the immense complexity of the natural world, one of my primary goals as an artist is to raise environmental consciousness. I print my etchings on handmade papers made from recycled materials, as well as plant fibers, especially those of invasive plants. 

Inspirations for your art practice?

My work is a response to the intricacies and depth of natural forms. I draw inspiration from other environmental artists including Andy Goldsworthy and mentors such as my papermaking professor Timothy Barrett who once said, “Sometimes I worry about what a weird thing it is to be preoccupied with paper when there’s so much trouble in the world, but then I think of how our whole culture is knitted together by paper, and it makes a kind of sense.”

 

Suyun Son

Pronouns: she/her

Website:  www.suyunson.com

Instagram:  @son.suyun

City: Louisville, KY

Where will you be traveling? Los Angeles, CA.

What will you be traveling for? 

I’ll be traveling to Southern California to deepen my artistic practice by studying exhibitions and collections that explore gesture, calligraphy, and abstraction. Key visits include LACMA’s Line, Form, Qi and The Hammer Museum’s Performance on Paper, which align with my work on Korean calligraphy and motion-based abstraction. I’ll engage with artists like Xu Bing and Qiu Zhijie to understand how script transforms into visual language, and examine rhythm and emotion in visual form. Additional stops at USC Pacific Asia Museum and The Getty Center will help contextualize Asian diasporic art within Southern California’s contemporary scene, enriching my creative and cultural perspective.

Short summary of your art practice?

I’m a painter and installation artist exploring identity beyond fixed notions of authenticity. My practice challenges the commercialization of the “authentic self” by presenting identity as fluid, contextual, and hybrid. I use fabric installations that shift and reconfigure, symbolizing multiform, non-marketable selves—contrasting the rigidity of traditional canvas. Linguistically, I blend Korean and English letters in printed gestures creating meaning through their visual harmony rather than literal syntax. My work invites viewers to reflect on their own evolving identities and celebrates the freedom to exist beyond cultural binaries and static definitions.

Inspirations for your art practice?

My art practice is inspired by the expressive depth of Korean and Chinese calligraphy, where each stroke embodies emotion and philosophy. I’m drawn to gestural arts and New York abstraction for their emphasis on movement, spontaneity, and the visceral language of form. Helen Frankenthaler’s lyrical color fields inform my approach to fluidity and material interplay. These influences converge in my work as I blend text, gesture, and abstraction to challenge boundaries, inviting viewers to consider the emotional and cultural layers within each mark.

 

James Wade

Pronouns: He/Him

Website: jameswadesculpture.com

Instagram: @james_wade_sculpture

City: Lexington, KY

Where will you be traveling? London, England

What will you be traveling for?

I will be traveling to London, England, to attend four primary exhibitions along with visiting several contemporary galleries. My visit will entail seeing the Do Ho Suh exhibition at Tate Modern, Giuseppe Penone at Serpentine Gallery, Anselm Kiefer at White Cube Gallery, and the Anselm Kiefer – Vincent Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy. While in London, I intend to visit other exhibitions and contemporary galleries. This immersive experience is to better inform my work about exploration of place through landscape, observation, memory, scale, and material context.

Short summary of your art practice? 

I am a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture, combining traditional methods with hybrid fabrication processes. My current sculpture builds off the complexity of mold making practices, celebrating the material and the residues of the casting process in metal and synthetics. Working with themes of childhood, memory, landscape, domestic and industrial forms, I instill my work with an awareness of place. My sculptures address sensitivity to the land and local, while the works reflect the intimate nature of observation. Each is responsive to histories and traditions intertwined with collective memory.

Inspirations for your art practice? 

Rachel Whiteread, Giuseppe Penone, Do Ho Suh, Anselm Kiefer, Steve Hurst, Ron Nagle, Keith Coventry, Mel Chin, agrarian architecture, traditional foundry patternmakers, early industrial design, cartography.

 

For updates on grant opportunities and artist news, visit greatmeadowsfoundation.org or follow @greatmeadowsfoundation on Instagram.

 

For more information:

Julien Robson

Director, Great Meadows Foundation

502-693-2593

director@greatmeadowsfoundation.org

 

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About the Great Meadows Foundation: 

Established in 2016 by contemporary art collector and philanthropist Al Shands (1928-2021), the Great Meadows Foundation is a non-profit, grant-giving organization named for the home that Al and his wife Mary created in Crestwood, Kentucky. The mission of the Great Meadows Foundation is to critically strengthen and support visual art in Kentucky by empowering the community’s artists and other visual arts professionals to research, connect, and participate more actively in the broader contemporary art world. More information at greatmeadowsfoundation.org.