Art News

An inside look at events and happenings in the contemporary art world.

Shiqing Deng, ASMR, oil on linen, 60 x 80”

Bennett Prize winner

The prestigious 2023 Bennett Prize, the largest prize offered solely to women figurative realist artists, went to Brooklyn-based painter Shiqing Deng. The artist’s work is described as being “quiet, contemplative, mysterious and humorous.” Deng will be awarded $50,000, giving her the opportunity to create new work in the figurative realist style for a traveling solo exhibition that will make its way across the country. The announcement of Deng’s win took place during the opening reception for the exhibition Rising Voices 3: The Bennett Prize, which runs through September 10 at the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan. The other nine Bennett Prize finalists are Ruth Dealy, Ronna S. Harris, Haley Hasler, Sara Lee Hughes, Monica Ikegwu, Laura Karetzky, Linda Infante Lyons, Mayumi Nakao and Kyla Zoe Rafert.

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Dale Chihuly installation

A site-specific art installation by acclaimed abstract artist Dale Chihuly will be featured in the new building for the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State, which is currently under construction. Commissioned in honor of Penn State President Emeritus Eric Barron and his wife Molly Barron, Lupine Blue Persian Wall will anchor the feature staircase in the museum’s new 71,254-square-foot facility. This massive installation, which features Chihuly’s signature organic, otherworldly glass forms, measures over 13 feet tall and 35 feet wide. The Palmer Museum of Art’s new building is currently set to open to the public in spring 2024.

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An installation view of Richard Mayhew: Natural Order at Venus Over Manhattan, New York. Courtesy Venus Over Manhattan.

Richard Mayhew: Natural Order

New York City-based gallery Venus Over Manhattan is hosting a solo exhibition of works by Afro-Native American artist Richard Mayhew. This landmark exhibition features around 20 paintings and works on paper, marking the gallery’s debut show with the artist, along with key loans from the collections of important supporters of Mayhew’s art. Richard Mayhew: Natural Order will be on view through June 17.

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A view of David Turner’s bronze Tidewater Terrapin.

SEWE public sculpture

The Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) continues to expand upon their public sculpture initiative by placing a permanent sculpture by David Turner called Tidewater Terrapin at the Mount Pleasant Waterfront Park. A nonprofit organization celebrating wildlife art and conservation, SEWE—which runs its beloved namesake event every February—has made sculpture a top initiative of its service to the community in recent years. “The focal point of Tidewater Terrapin is the diamondback terrapin. The sculpture also includes oysters and eelgrass which, along with the terrapin, are all important barometers of the health of an Atlantic tidewater ecosystem,” Turner says of his work.