FLORIDA KEYS COUNCIL OF THE ARTS
Press Release
Contact: Liz Young
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 305-295-4369
07/28/2020

SOUTH FLORIDA CULTURAL CONSORTIUM ANNOUNCES RECIPIENTS OF 2019-2020 VISUAL AND MEDIA ARTISTS AWARDS

The Florida Keys Council of the Arts is proud to announce that two Monroe County artists have been named as recipients of the prestigious 2020 South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Awards. Mark Hedden of Key West, and Michel Delgado, also of Key West were recently selected to receive this esteemed, five-county artist fellowship. Each artist will receive an award of $7,500 and be included in an exhibit this Spring featuring all winners from the five counties.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC) announces thirteen (13) awards to preeminent South Florida artists through its 2019-2020 Visual and Media Artists Program. The Consortium, an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties, has recognized seven individuals from Miami-Dade County, three from Broward County, one from Palm Beach County, and two from Monroe County. The awards are conferred at either the $15,000 or $7,500 level. These awards are among the largest such honors accorded by local arts agencies to visual and media artists in the United States. Celebrating 32 years in 2020 (established in 1988), the SFCC has awarded over $4 million in grants to more than 300 artists. In addition to receiving the grant, the artists take part in an exhibition hosted and organized by a visual arts institution in one of the five counties.

The recipients were selected through a two-tier panel process which included the participation of regional and national arts experts. The 2019-2020 regional panel, whose adjudications are based on the evaluation of the artists' work as evidenced by the work samples submitted, included: Aldeide Delgado, Founder & Director, Women Photographer’s International Archive (Miami-Dade), Stephanie Seidel, Associate Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (Miami-Dade), Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale (Broward), Edison Peñafiel, Artist, SFCC 2019 Recipient (Broward), and Sybille Welter, Art in Public Places, City of West Palm Beach (Palm Beach). The submissions selected by the regional panel for further consideration were forwarded for final adjudication and selection to the national panel, which was comprised of: Allison Glenn, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR), Jeanette Bisschops, Mondriaan Foundation Curator, New Museum (New York, NY), and Vivian Crockett, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX).

Michel Delgado grew up in Senegal, on the west coast of Africa, where life and art shared the same space. They were indistinguishable. As a young boy in Dakar, he learned that art is the tool for a direct and honest conversation with his own heart. Art always has been his rescuer, his liberator – creatively, emotionally, and spiritually. He is a self-taught painter, able to create in any media, always painting work that is straightforward and personal, work coming from a place within that is constantly loud and growing.

Mark Hedden is a writer, photographer, and birding guide. He writes narrative nonfiction, primarily ornithology-oriented natural history, which most people refer to as “stuff about birds.” He has also written about necrovoyeurism, his love of the Tour de France, his aversion to pirates, his hatred of clowns, the inappropriate use of firearms during photo shoots, and music. His work has been published in the Bone Island Sun, the Key West Citizen, Solares Hill newspaper, the Miami Herald, Tropic magazine, Miami Metro magazine, the Washington Post, and the secret of salt. He has lived in Key West all of his adult life.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists is a cooperative project
funded in part with the support of the boards of County Commissioners of Broward, Miami-Dade,
Martin and Monroe counties and the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.

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