Artist Professional Development Grants | Round 28 Recipients
July 29, 2025Great Meadows Foundation Awards Grants to 11 Kentucky Artists
Latest grant cycle marks more than $1.3 million in funding given to artists in the state
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, November 24, 2025 – The Great Meadows Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of its 29th round of Artist Professional Development Grants, awarding 11 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 $1.3 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 29 Recipients
Karen Boone
Pronouns: she/her
Website: karenboone.com
Instagram: @karenboonedesign
Current City: Borden, IN
Where will you be traveling? Ortisei and Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will attend the 10th Biennale Gherdëina 2026, an international contemporary art exhibition held in Ortisei, Val Gardena, in the UNESCO World Heritage Dolomite mountains in northern Italy. It is known for its focus on contemporary art and its integration with the natural landscape. The theme is “Listen” and curated by Samuel Leuenberger. I will also attend the 61st Venice Biennale 2026, “In Minor Keys” curated by the late Koyo Kouoh.
Short summary of your art practice?
I am a sculptor and painter using foraged materials to create minimalist illusions of natural formations. I forage for clays and charred wood, grind them with a pestle and mortar, then mix with walnut oil or gum arabic. I sculpt cardboard into shapes like rocks and trees, apply a plant-based gesso, then paint them with handmade pigments. I infuse the quiet energy of nature into my art, a simplicity devoid of toxins and glitz, a reciprocal gift back to the land that encourages a dialogue around earth and human co-existence.
Inspirations for your art practice?
Nature is my primary inspiration, but I follow artists who focus on climate and social justice in their work, such as Moffat Takadiwa who weaves recycled materials; Simone Leigh who sculpts large monochromatic figures; Otobong Nkanga who makes installations of large-scale natural objects; Amy Sherald, Ruth Asawa and Georgia O’Keeffe. I use recycled and earth materials, a minimalist palette, organic and figurative forms and have deep compassion for nature, so these artists resonate strongly.
Sabra L Crockett
Pronouns: she/her
Website: sabracrockett.com
Instagram: sabra_l_crockett_artist
Current City: Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling? Costa Rica
What will you be traveling for?
I’ll spend three weeks at Monte Azul Center for the Arts located on 100 acres of protected rainforest in the highlands. I’ll be working with a master printmaker and master papermaker, visiting artists’ studios and galleries in San Isidro de El General, and creating many field studies of the flora and fauna in the area. I will then spend a week visiting galleries and art museums in San Jose.
Short summary of your art practice?
I am an unconventional wildlife painter who focuses on our relationship to the natural world and the value we place upon it. My background is in scenic art, decorative painting, and mural work. These practices inform my use of realism and my luxurious use of pattern, texture and light. My work can be seen all over the Southeastern US in boutique hotels, restaurants, and public and private residencies.
Inspirations for your art practice? Some bird illustrators that I admire are Rex Brasher, Daniel Giraud Elliot, and John Gould. Contemporary artists that inspire me are Jon Ching, Flora Yukhnovich, and Kehinde Wiley.
Hannah Dewhirst
Pronouns: she/her
Website: hannahdewhirst.com
Instagram: @sub_._studio
Current City: Lexington, KY
Where will you be traveling? Japan
What will you be traveling for?
I will travel to Japan to immerse myself in sensorial art and perception-based installation, but also to experience the profound embodied act of being elsewhere. The trip centers on the work of Shūsaku Arakawa + Madeline Gins, and includes a stay at the Reversible Destiny Lofts and visits to the Site of Reversible Destiny and Ubiquitous Site, Nagi’s Ryoanji. I will also engage with James Turrell, Walter De Maria, and Tadao Ando’s atmospheric installations on Naoshima Island. Through direct experience and the study of time and place-based work, I hope to return to my own practice with a renewed perceptual sensitivity.
Short summary of your art practice?
My practice centers on creating immersive installations and environments that heighten sensory and perceptual awareness. I forefront immaterial materials—light, color, water, and atmosphere—to explore how they mediate our experience of self and the world. By tuning space, I investigate how intense illumination, chromatic saturation, material immersion, and sensory isolation can shift consciousness and cultivate presence. My work is grounded in full-scale experimentation, using inflatable structures, sensory deprivation tanks, and tactile spaces that receive the body as tools for research and experience. These installations operate between the utopian, the disorienting, and the meditative.
Inspirations for your art practice?
My practice is informed by Arakawa + Gins’ experiments in “architectural bodies,” which challenge habitual perception through radical spatial conditions. I am influenced by James Turrell, Pippilotti Rist, and Julio le Parc, whose work engages light, scale, and time in pursuit of sensory awakening. I also draw from SUPERSTUDIO and Haus Rucker Co., whose wearable and temporal environments operate as forms of cultural and social critique.
Mitch Eckert
Pronouns: he/him
Website: mitcheckert.com
Instagram: mitch_eckert
Current City: Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling? Rome, Turin, Milan, and Venice, Italy
What will you be traveling for?
I will travel to Italy to research the relationship between ancient ruins and contemporary art, a connection central to my photographic practice. Over the course of fourteen days, I will visit Rome, Turin, Milan, and Venice to study historic sites such as Pompeii, Ostia Antica, and Tivoli, alongside major contemporary institutions, including MAXXI, Castello di Rivoli, Hangar Bicocca, and the Venice Biennale. This trip will enable me to observe how artists and architects interact with concepts of decay, preservation, and material transformation. The experience will directly inform the construction of new photographic environments and strengthen the conceptual foundation of my ongoing work.
Short summary of your art practice?
My practice sits at the intersection of photography and sculpture, where I construct and photograph imagined worlds made from discarded materials. Rooted in an interest in garbology and the environmental impact of consumerism, my work transforms Styrofoam and other detritus into forms that resemble rusted iron or aged bronze. These staged environments—part ruin, part monument—are photographed to heighten illusion and suggest archaeological remnants of our age. Influenced by constructed realities and the aesthetics of ruin, my images explore material transformation, permanence, and the absurdity of the disposable, envisioning future worlds built from the remains of contemporary consumption.
Inspirations for your art practice?
My work is inspired by artists who build and photograph imaginary worlds, including James Casebere, Thomas Demand, and Lori Nix, whose constructed environments blur fact and fiction. I’m also influenced by the directorial mode and other approaches that use staging, illusion, and narrative to question what a photograph can represent. Ideas from garbology, archaeology, and the Anthropocene shape my interest in how discarded materials may become future artifacts. I draw from the aesthetics of ruins, speculative futures, and the absurdity of the disposable, using these frameworks to reimagine consumer waste as imagined monuments, landscapes, and temples.
Debra Harley
Pronouns: she/her
Instagram: @debraharley
Current City: Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling? Lagos, Nigeria
What will you be traveling for?
Travel to Lagos will help me realize unexpected potentials for my creative development. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize winning Nigerian novelist states, “The best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.” Experiencing the essential forms of national culture in Nigeria through dialogue with artists, citizens, curators and
gallery owners will provide this. While growing my understanding of significant artworks and Nigerian artists, prominent on my list is meeting Dr. Nike Okundaye, world renowned textile designer, who is known for building community and support systems for women.
Short summary of your art practice?
As an emerging self-taught fiber artist who follows instinctive processes, I strive to continuously challenge myself. To be conscious implies being more critical and analytical for the sake of giving shape to my practice of handquilting. My practice aims to stitch a narrative of shared identity between African and African-American aesthetics. My work creates a tactile picture and a textured appearance with fabric and thread where the impact of color is immediate. Patterns provide interest and contrast to the surface and I seek to explore similar motifs between African and African-American works of art.
Inspirations for your art practice?
What does it mean to preserve cultural heritage? I am inspired by the suggestion of an ancient form to clothe a new concept. Art, like life, is meant to be discovered individually and this awakened feeling passed on as inspiration to others. Sam Gilliam, abstract painter and sculptor reached the unknown through his expression of color and draping of fabric. Dr. Nike Okundaye’s life story is another beacon for what a woman with vision and creative talent can accomplish. The Nike Art Foundation, opened in 1983, owns and operates art galleries and workshops across four locations in Nigeria.
Zach Jett
Pronouns: he/they
Website: zachjett.com
Instagram: @zach.jett
Current City: Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling? Shanghai, China
What will you be traveling for?
I will be traveling to Shanghai to attend the 15th Shanghai Biennial. I look forward to attending exhibitions at museums such as Fotografiska Shanghai, Power Station of Art and the Museum of Art Pudong. I am particularly excited to view Cho Gi-Seok’s “The Coexistence of Imperfection” at Fotografiska, as their work has inspired me for quite some time. Aside from exhibitions, I look forward to being immersed in the artistic culture at places such as the M50 art district, where galleries and artist’s studios are open to the public.
Short summary of your art practice?
I utilize both digital and alternative photographic processes to create images that explore themes of oneness, queerness and identity. I photograph myself and others, often utilizing nondescript or natural environments. My work seeks to answer the question of where the boundary lies between oneself and the rest of the universe, or if there is one at all. In order to emphasize this , the human form often becomes abstracted within the environments I create: taking on new shapes, colors and proportions synonymous with the environment around it.
Inspirations for your art practice?
The roots of my practice can be traced deep into the fields and forests of Kentucky, where I began my artistic journey in the form of self-portraiture. Nature is my foremost source of inspiration when I create: nothing in natural systems is truly separate, and I want to express that sentiment through my work. Artists that inspire me include Andy Goldsworthy, John Dugdale, Brooke Shaden and David Uzochukwu. Though all very different, I feel all of these artists exude poise, intention and drama through their work. These qualities are what I strive to create in my own art.
Forest Kelley
Pronouns: he/him
Website: forestkelley.net
Instagram: @forest_kelley
Current City: Lexington, KY
Where will you be traveling? Tokyo & Yokohama, Japan
What will you be traveling for?
I’ll spend one month in Tokyo and Yokohama, anchored by an invitation from Spiral (Wacoal Art Center). I’m eager to explore how contemporary artists adapt folding, surface, and print-finishing techniques to shape new ideas in form and material experience. I’m looking forward to studio visits with artists and curators whose work engages these expanded material strategies—drawing from both traditional approaches and the visual languages of commercial packaging and display systems. I will also visit contemporary institutions and independent art spaces focused on innovative forms and methods that will inform the next phase of my work.
Short summary of your art practice?
My practice is conceptual and materially driven, using innovative fabrication, imaging, and sound to examine how objects and images construct and embody value. Recent installations integrate projection, sound, and sculptural elements to create non-didactic encounters with material and social narratives. My current work embeds idealized landscape imagery into foldable, die-line–based structures that suggest absent objects, mutability, and the tension between wilderness imagery and domestic infrastructures. I merge photographic surfaces with engineered forms to draw upon the visual language of consumer packaging in order to critique how display systems are designed to generate desire and aura.
Inspirations for your art practice?
My practice is inspired by artists and designers who harness innovative techniques to illuminate vital social and material stories—particularly those who reveal how structures, surfaces, and display systems shape perception and value. I’m also influenced by the paradoxes of visual languages, such as commercial design’s reliance on imagery of wilderness and the natural sublime to construct meaning and emotional resonance. Over the past few years, my work has been transformed by collaborations with global networks such as Hyper Cultural Passengers, Port Journeys, and Port Futures & Social Logistics, whose projects foreground exchange, shared knowledge, and expanded notions of community.
Marcia McMillen
Pronouns: she/her
Website: MarciaMcMillen.com
Instagram: @MarciaMcMillen
Current City: Covington, KY
Where will you be traveling? Paris, France
What will you be traveling for?
I will travel to Paris to attend the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Richter’s approach to layering, color, and material invention has been central to my development as an abstract painter, and seeing this broad survey in person will deepen my understanding of his practice. During this focused period, I will also spend time exploring current contemporary art exhibitions and major museum shows across the city. I anticipate that this period of focused observation and exploration will enrich my perspective and offer inspiration for my studio work.
Short summary of your art practice?
I am an abstract painter who uses acrylics to create a pictorial depth that suggests both the motion of water and the ethereality of atmospheric space. Working with the canvas horizontally, I move paint with cardboard and improvised tools to build layered surfaces where translucency and opacity interact. I often work on several paintings at once, allowing each to inform the next. Time spent in natural environments—especially along coastlines and lakes—continues to shape my visual vocabulary, guiding a process that balances material presence with a sense of expansive, shifting space.
Inspirations for your art practice?
My work is deeply influenced by observing the natural world, particularly the movement and shifting light of water. I draw from artists whose practices explore energy, color, and abstraction—especially Joan Mitchell, whose expressive mark-making resonates with my own approach. Gerhard Richter’s investigations into layered surfaces and the tension between clarity and obscurity are also central influences. I’m equally energized by the broader history of abstraction and by time spent in landscapes that allow me to absorb color, rhythm, and atmosphere directly.
Aaron Raymer
Pronouns: he/ him
Website: aaronraymer.com
Instagram: @aaronraymerart
Current City: Louisville, KY
Where will you be traveling? New York, NY
What will you be traveling for?
While in New York, I will attend the Whitney Biennial, the most influential survey of contemporary American art as well as New Museum, where two major exhibitions, New Humans and Sarah Lucas, will offer insight into current conversations around identity, materiality, and social critique. At the Museum of Modern Art, I will view the first comprehensive Marcel Duchamp retrospective in the U.S. since 1973, offering an opportunity to study a foundational figure in conceptual art. Additionally, I plan to visit Dia Beacon, where the collection includes formative works by artists such as Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin, and Robert Smithson.
Short summary of your art practice?
I am an interdisciplinary artist who makes conceptually driven work primarily focusing on sculpture and installation. The use of materials and techniques are determined by what I feel best conveys the concept or conceit of the work or series. This allows me freedom to experiment and not be constrained to one style or process. Given this, the aesthetic and experience of my complete body of work varies quite substantially from piece to piece and/or from series to series.
Inspirations for your art practice?
Given my unrestrained approach I feel my art aligns closely with conceptual artists like Marcel Duchamp, Tom Friedman, Paul McCarthy, Janine Antoni, Bruce Nauman, Maurizio Cattelan, John Baldessari, and others who aren’t tied to one medium, methodology, or subject.
Alexandra Rumsey
Pronouns: she/her
Website: alexandrarumseyart.com
Instagram: @alexandrarumseyart
Current City: New Albany, IN
Where will you be traveling? Edinburgh, London, and Cornwall, UK
What will you be traveling for?
In Edinburgh I will be visiting the National Galleries of Scotland to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibition, Fruit Market Gallery, and Jupiter Artland. In London I will visit Tate Modern to see work by Tracey Emin and Kiki Smith, and Tate Britain to see the Francis Bacon and Henry Moore rooms. In London I will also visit Pace Gallery, and Whitechapel Gallery. In Cornwall I will visit Tate St. Ives, and Half Acre Studios, a curated sculpture garden and gallery.
Short summary of your art practice?
I am a mixed-media artist, utilizing plaster, clay, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, and found objects. The nature of my work for the past thirteen years has been centered on death, cycles, rebirth, nature, mysticism, and the ephemeral. I have my MFA from Southern Illinois University of Carbondale in 2D art, and curate group art shows locally at various galleries and venues.
Inspirations for your art practice?
I am influenced by Kiki Smith for her sculptural pieces of animals and human figures referencing folklore through transgressive imagery. Tracey Emin for her compelling found object installations. Francis Bacon’s paintings for his expressive interpretations of life, death, and the animal nature of humanity. Aleksandra Kasuba for her fabric installations and 2D collages exploring place and identity. Louise Bourgeois for her large scale sculptures and installation work dealing with the psyche, fear, and maternity. All of these artists deal with larger scale works, mixed media techniques, and often transgressive subject matter.
Jack X. Taylor
Pronouns: he/him
Instagram: @theworkofjackxtaylor
Current City: Lexington, KY
Where will you be traveling? Athens, Hydra, Crete, and Rhodes, Greece
What will you be traveling for?
I’ll be visiting the Biennale of Contemporary Keramics and speaking with Greek contemporary ceramicists about how their work uses classic motifs to address national identity during times of global political upheaval.
Short summary of your art practice?
I make handbuilt ceramic storytelling vessels adorned with both text and a library of personally significant symbology to explore my roles as spiritual being, citizen, and artist in a country and culture that often feels violently opposed to my humanistic values.
Inspirations for your art practice?
My work is inspired by American folk art, American Classic tattoo art, classic Greek illustrated ceramics and Greek myth, as well as the spiritual philosophies and symbols of Simone Weil, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and Evangelical and Liberation Theology Christianity.
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
#####
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.