Artists Margaux Crump, Alison McNulty, and Yvonne Osei have been named the winners of the 2022 Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Awards. Each artist will receive 25,000 USD to advance their studio practice.
Presented by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, the Stone & DeGuire awards are open to all alumni of the Sam Fox School’s Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts programs (with the exception of full-time Sam Fox School faculty). Recipients are chosen by a jury of faculty and alumni.
“Just look at the range of ideas Margaux, Alison, and Yvonne represent,” remarked Amy Hauft, director of the College of Art in the Sam Fox School. “Margaux’s sculpture, photography, and time-based works are playful yet manifest complexity. Alison investigates the nature of place in all its material and historical veracity and nuance. Yvonne’s performances and installations, rooted in traditional West African culture, dissect colonial histories and consider the ramifications of pan-global trade, all while reveling in glorious color. The Sam Fox School is proud to support their work and to be represented by this kind of range in both subject and matter.”
The Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award is named for the artist duo Nancy Stone DeGuire (1947-2013) and Lawrence R. DeGuire Jr. (1947–2006). The pair met as Washington University undergraduates and exhibited widely along the West Coast, beginning in the early 1970s.
“The work of Stone & DeGuire was characterized by a powerful sense of creative dialogue,” said Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School. “These awards honor that legacy while allowing recent and mid-career alumni to continue pushing forward their unique artistic practices and concerns.”
Read the full news release here.
About the artists
Margaux Crump, MFA in Visual Art, 2015
Crump’s interdisciplinary practice explores the nexus of ecology, magic and myth, with particular attention to the phenomena of unseen worlds, from the microscopic to the supernatural. Her work has been showcased in more than 20 group and one-person exhibitions, including solo shows at Women & Their Work in Austin and FLATS in Houston. It has been featured in the Houston Chronicle, the Austin Chronicle, Artnet, and Newcity Art, among others. Previous honors include a Texas Commission on the Arts award and residencies at The Hambidge Center in Georgia and I-Park in Connecticut.
Alison McNulty, BFA, 2001
McNulty’s practice investigates “the fragile, entangled nature of our relationship to the material world.” Employing ubiquitous, salvaged materials associated with specific places and histories, she examines discordant views of time and place, intersectional thinking, and relational possibilities beyond the human. McNulty’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, most recently at PS21 in Chatham, New York. Currently a part-time lecturer at The New School, Parsons School of Design in New York, she holds an MFA in sculpture from the University of Florida and previously taught at Marist College, Brooklyn College, and Whitman College. Her work has been featured in Artnet, Chronogram, Praxis Interview Magazine, and numerous exhibition catalogs.
Yvonne Osei, MFA in Visual Art, 2016
A German-born Ghanaian performance and video artist, Osei is now based in the United States. Her practice explores the topics of beauty and colorism, the politics of clothing, and how global trade and colonialism impact post-colonial West African and Western cultures. Osei has presented more than a dozen solo performances and exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and West Africa, including works at Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Bruno David Gallery, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (she is featured in the upcoming 2022 Great Rivers Biennial). Her numerous honors include the Richard A. Horovitz Award for African Artists and Scholars, an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, and a Romare Bearden Graduate Minority Fellowship from the Saint Louis Art Museum.
