The Bill Fischer Award for Visual Artists is a $5,000 cash prize designed to make a meaningful impact on the career of a visual artist residing in the Louisville Metro Area by providing support in the form of grants for the execution and exhibition of artwork and other efforts to foster a professional career as a visual artist. Recipients of the Fischer Prize must show a commitment to experimentation and the creative use of materials and techniques, and a commitment to pursuing a career as a professional working visual artist.
"My work seeks to stir nostalgia for the primordial past and sublime in nature, via romantic collaborations with the natural world," says 2018 winner Elizabeth Hardy. "Whether through carving marble (a material consisting of interlocking crystals made by generations of petrified tiny creatures slowly compressed by gravity at the bottom of a primordial sea), or through growing crystals as surface treatment, the role of natural phenomena as process is consistently present in sculptural works and installations".
Hardy adds, "Beyond my attraction to such processes that emphasize time passage - translating ephemeral makings into enduring works that can speak to our past and present for years to come - I am interested in producing work that honors the legacy of classic sculptural techniques which stand the test of time, married with a contemporary experimental style that defies convention."
Hardy plans to use her prize money "to provide a suitable environment with tools to establish a space to be able to create works on a larger scale than I am physically capable of doing with the restrictions of my current studio space. I could expand my practice for my own productions as well as have a proper venue to function as a learning environment that I could share the techniques I have learned with others."
A reception to present the award to Hardy will be held on Tuesday, January 9 from 5-6 p.m. at the Tim Faulkner Gallery, 1512 Portland Avenue, adjacent to LVA's office in Portland. The event is open to the public.
The Bill Fischer Award for Visual Artists is funded by the Artist Bill Fischer Foundation for Working Artists at the Community Foundation of Louisville. Louisville Visual Art serves as the administrative partner to the project and competition process.
