Arianne Ohman has been awarded the 2024 Glasstire Central Texas Art Writing Prize. In her winning essay, titled The Unfinished Portrait of General Bonaparte and the Art of Incomplete Masterpieces, Ms. Ohman writes about how an artwork helped her see the beauty of imperfection in aspects of her life. The $2,500 prize includes the winning essay being published on Glasstire, and a celebration in Ms. Ohman’s honor this evening.
Arianne Ohman
Ms. Ohman is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is double majoring in Plan II Honors and International Relations and Global Studies. She wrote her thesis on the role of contemporary art in Chinese politics, reflecting her belief that art is an important conduit for understanding humanity’s diverse experiences. Though Ms. Ohman is proud to call herself a Texan, she grew up in Hong Kong and in the future hopes to continue discovering art from around the world.
Ms. Ohman told Glasstire, “I’m thrilled and tremendously grateful to have been selected as this year’s winner. It’s an incredible honor to have my work featured in Glasstire, whose mission, to amplify the voices of artists and enrich discussion about art in Texas, I deeply believe in.”
Judges for this round of the Prize included Annette Carlozzi, an independent curator; Rigoberto Luna, co-founder and Director of Presa House Gallery in San Antonio; Brandon Zech, Publisher of Glasstire; Jessica Fuentes, News Editor of Glasstire; and William Sarradet, Assistant Editor of Glasstire.
As announced last September, the 2024 Central Texas Glasstire Art Writing Prize is a competitive award designed to find and highlight emerging arts writers in the greater Austin/San Antonio region. This is the sixth year of the Prize, which has focused on various regions across Texas, including Central Texas (2022), Greater Houston (2021), North Texas (2023, 2021, 2019, 2018) and San Antonio (2020).
In conjunction with this year’s Prize, Ms. Ohman, along with runners up, will participate in a Glasstire-led Writing Seminar this weekend.
Thank you to our supporters of the 2024 Central Texas Prize:
BENEFACTOR
Deborah Dupré & Richard Rothberg
PARTNER
Kathleen Irvin Loughlin & Chris Loughlin
CONTRIBUTOR
Annette Carlozzi & Dan Bullock
Sara Carter & Ralph Manak
Dolores Garcia & Gilberto Cardenas
Ivester Contemporary
Linda & William Reaves
FRIEND
Ilene & Paul Barr
Ellen & David Berman
Emily Chambers & Brandon Zech
Sally Whitman Coleman
Chris & Jim Cowden
Heimbinder Family Foundation
Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler
Sheryl Kolasinski
landSPACE
Northern-Southern
The Old Jail Art Center
Heather Pesanti
Sally & Norman Reynolds
Amy Sawtelle
Frances Thompson
Cynthia Toles
Wally Workman Gallery
Additional Supporters Include:
Ann S. Graham
kind of a small array
About The Glasstire Art Writing Prize
The Glasstire Art Writing Prize is awarded to a senior undergraduate or graduate student at a Texas university. For this open call, students from art history, journalism, studio arts, philosophy, literature, and other departments at participating universities in the Central Texas area were invited to submit articles with a word count between 750 and 1200 words about a work of art that they love, and why.
Past Prizes
The 2023 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Blake Bathman, a graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas with a BA in Visual and Performing Arts with an Art History Concentration. Their winning essay, Catching Feelings: Jes Fan’s “Networks for Rupture and Dispersal,” was about the ways in which Fan’s sculpture, which is made of black mold sealed inside glass, mirrors society’s aversion toward and treatment of queer people. Guest jurors for this round of the Prize included Lauren Cross, the Gail-Oxford Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Huntington; and Alison Hearst, Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 2023 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Laura and Walter Elcock, Marguerite Steed Hoffman, and others.
The 2022 Central Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Allison Marino, a MA student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her winning essay, Old, New, and Back Again: What’s in a Map?, was about the unique perspectives of maps that were created by Indigenous artists during the mid-16th century. Guest jurors for the Prize included Austin and Mexico-based independent curator Leslie Moody Castro, and Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City in San Antonio. The 2022 Central Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Suzanne Deal Booth; Annette Carlozzi and Dan Bullock; Michael Chesser; Deborah Dupré and Richard Rothberg; Jane Hilfer and Alec Rhodes; The Meyer Levy Fund – Tobin Levy; Pat & Bud Smothers; AnaPaula and Mark Watson; and others.
The 2021 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Kevin Zander Johnson, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about Spike Lee’s landmark film Do the Right Thing. Guest jurors for the Prize included Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, and lauren woods, artist and Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University. The 2021 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; Laura and Walter Elcock; Marguerite Steed Hoffman; Charles Dee Mitchell, and others.
The 2021 Greater Houston Art Writing Prize winner was Justin Jannise, a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston, who wrote about TRUE NORTH 2020, the Heights Boulevard sculpture exhibition. Guest jurors for the Prize included Molly Glentzer, former Senior Writer and Critic, Arts & Culture for the Houston Chronicle, and Gabriel Martinez, artist and Director of Alabama Song. The 2021 Greater Houston Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; Foltz Fine Art; Cece & Mack Fowler; Melanie Gray & Mark Wawro; Poppi Georges Massey; and others.
The 2020 San Antonio Art Writing Prize winner was Christina Frasier, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the Anthropology Department, where she studies cultural sustainability in the face of gentrification. Her winning essay was titled Resistance In Place: Christopher Montoya’s Mural of Cesar Chavez, San Antonio, about an exceptional mural’s location and restoration in a San Antonio neighborhood that’s experiencing the forces of gentrification.
The 2019 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Mathieu Debic, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune. Guest jurors for the Prize included Jeremy Strick, Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, and Terri Thornton, Curator of Education at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 2019 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Laura and Walter Elcock; Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; John and Lisa Runyon; and Eleanor Williams.
The inaugural 2018 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Melanie Shi, a student of Philosophy at the University of North Texas in Denton, who wrote about The Color Inside, a skyspace artwork by American artist James Turrell. Guest jurors for the Prize included Augustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, and Anne Bothwell, Vice President of Arts for KERA. The 2018 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Laura and Walter Elcock; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; Jana and Hadley Paul; and Cindy and Howard Rachofsky.
