Mary Heathcott, far right, announces the recipients of the Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency, including Joe Harjo, far left, and Sabine Senft.
Blue Star Contemporary (BSC) in San Antonio has announced its 2020/2021 BSC Berlin Residency Artists, hosted by Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. They are: Jill Bedgood, Joe Harjo, Jayne Lawrence, and Sabine Senft. The residency gives them the opportunity to live and work in Berlin for three months each. Künstlerhaus Bethanien awards 25 artists from around the world year-long residencies, which creates a dialogue between selected artists and the public.
Now in its 8th cycle, the Berlin Residency was established in 2013 in part by the efforts of Dr. Angelika Jansen, Board Vice President for the Lone Star Arts Alliance. The program selects four artists residing in Bexar County to take part; each artists gets a studio and living space, and access to workshops, exhibition opportunities, and studio visits with international curators.
This cycle’s artists were selected from an open call for Bexar county artists; the selecting panel was appointed by BSC. The four residency cycles are July 15–October 8; October 15–January 8; January 15–April 8; and April 15–July 8.
Jill Bedgood, Even Song: Lunar Cycle, 2017. Acrylic and plaster on canvas. 25 x 50 inches Rice Silo, Sawyer Yards, Houston, TX. Courtesy of the artist.
Via Blue Star and the artists:
Jill Bedgood is a multi-media artist interested in “the supposed duality of human nature.” She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in painting and art history from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in mixed-media sculpture and art history. Bedgood has been awarded grants including a visiting artist residencies at the American Academy in Rome and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, among others.
Joe Harjo, Let Us Pray, 2019. Photograph. 40 x 27 x 4 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Joe Harjo’s work exposes common beliefs derived from misinformed narratives of perception, misrepresentation, stereotypes, and false imagery, often using humor as the catalyst for change. He challenges what is societally considered “Native American” and what is not. A Professor of Photography at Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, TX, Harjo received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a BFA from The University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK. His recent exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at various locations in San Antonio, TX: Sala Diaz; Dock Space Gallery; San Antonio Public Library; Parchman Stremmel Galleries; and UTSA Satellite Space.
Jayne Lawrence, Outwitted: The green bean saga, 2017. Graphite on Bristol. 33.5 in x 24.5 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Jayne Lawrence, a mixed-media artist focused on sculpture and drawing, has worked as a commercial artist in Denver, Colorado and relocated to San Antonio in the early ‘80s. She received her BFA and MFA in sculpture from the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she’s taught since 2000. Using the dynamics of nature-based systems and subsystems, Lawrence combines disparate elements based on similarities or irregularities in function, surface quality, and structure to create configurations that represent the mutual interdependencies that exist between humans and the natural world.
Sabine Senft, 45-20 GOVT, 2016. Hand-polished boulder, found object, bullet shells. 8 x 7.5 x 4.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Sabine Senft works with sculpture, mixed-media, and painting, and is inspired by various cultures and geopolitical situations. Her work is informed by current cross-cultural observations blended with European heritage and history. The1994 BFA graduate from the University of Regensburg, Germany studied sculpture and painting with residencies in Italy, while living in Austria and France, and continued her education through museum studies and art workshops. Earning a master’s degree in Munich in 1995, she went on to live and work in Japan, London, and Brazil, where her interactions with other cultures began to inform her work.
For more on the winners and the Berlin Residency, please visit Blue Star Contemporary’s website here.
