The Mid-America Arts Alliance announced the 2023 Artist 360 Awards last fall, and the School of Art in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences celebrates the art graduate students and an alumna undergraduate student as grant recipients, as well as all local artists awarded project and student grants.

School of Art graduate student recipients include Ana Buitrago, Melissa Loney, Larissa Ramey, Jocelyn Reid and recent alumna Augusta Zuerker, who graduated with art history and studio art degrees.

"The School of Art is excited for the recipients of this year's Artist 360 Awards, especially those with connections to the School of Art," said Christopher Schulte, interim director of the School of Art. "In addition to providing support and an occasion for professional growth, the Artist 360 Awards recognize the innovative work and impactful contributions of our students and alums. The School of Art is especially proud to be situated in a region as dynamic as Northwest Arkansas, where the arts are not only positively received and well supported but acknowledged as essential to building and being in community." 

Ana Buitrago is an artist and designer from Bogotá, Columbia, specializing in the study of ceramics at the School of Art. Her practice is on ceramic objects that are inspired by Pre-Columbian cultures and modern infrastructure.

"I am interested in challenging the viewer through manipulating materials such as clay to create a new understanding of form and surface," Buitrago said. "In my work, I aim to redefine the usual by attributing a monumental role to the form, which results in pieces that have an uncanny aura." 

Melissa Loney received her B.A. in studio art from Hastings College and is pursuing her M.F.A in sculpture. As a native from Omaha, Nebraska, Looney was raised in the industrious rays of Midwest maternal labor practices and credits these practices to her inescapable responsibility of caring.  

"My practice questions domestic histories by positioning personal generationally learned labor as public political intervention," Loney said. "This path represents my confusion about these places and how I grew up within them, an exploration of how belonging can be found in the act of inventing." 

Larissa Ramey is pursuing her M.F.A. in photography and describes herself as a multi-disciplinary maker, entrepreneur and arts organizer. She is creating work that challenges and expands the roles of black archive, fashion, collaboration, family and performance.

"Documenting and interpreting levels of blackness and archival methods through mixed media practice, installations and art facilitation has allowed me to cultivate a visual language through my lived experiences by utilizing lens-based media, curation, black culture, publications, teaching and workshops," Ramey said. "To be an active participant, I created STOOP TALK and wearable (we are able) archive to make more space for black culture to be fluid and promoted through clothing and cooperative art making." 

Jocelyn Reid is a ceramic and mixed media artist from Calgary, Canada. Her work highlights the extraordinary nature of the mundane by re-creating everyday objects, childhood items and familiar structures.

"My research centers around the inanimate and often low-cost things that do work for us as humans. Childhood items, ephemeral objects and familiar structures all hold weight, emotional or otherwise," Reid said. "I find interest in the translation of these objects into new materials; by re-creating them, I question where their value is generated or lost."

Augusta Zuerker recently graduated from the U of A School of Art with degrees in studio art and art history. As a painter, she found her muse with movement, a journey that began in high school and further explored in college. 

"Athletic events contain so much emotional and physical movement, and the intricate differences between sports emphasize the importance of muscle memory or repetition of movements in their respective athletes," Zuerker said. "I have been focusing on athletics in my paintings, primarily as something I have stumbled into loving. A juxtaposition of pace is reflected well between painting and training that forces the hand of the artist and athlete—every decision matters."