Photo by Evan Joseph
The prestigious Fellowship spotlights the talent and promise of a diverse group of 14 artists working in visual art, moving image, writing, and music
The National Arts Club (NAC) announces 14 new Artist Fellows for 2023-24: Jeanette Andrews, Yacine Boulares, Lydia Cornett, Rodney Ewing, Liliana Farber, Pala Garcia, Lindy Giusta, Caroline Golum, Eunbi Kim, Nancy Ma, Thomas March, Eto Otitigbe, Kebra Seyon-Charles, and Anastasiya Tarasenko. The NAC Artist Fellowship program, launched in 2019 and now in its fourth cycle, provides up-and-coming artists across all disciplines with one year of full membership in the historic club and access to its considerable array of resources. The Fellows are chosen after a rigorous review by an esteemed panel of judges composed of leaders in all artistic disciplines.
This season’s application pool was the most competitive yet, with over 380 applications submitted — a 125% increase from 2022-23. The NAC credits this increase to the growing stature of the Fellowship in the arts world, propelled by the Club’s increasing public programming initiatives, building renovations, and ongoing commitment to its mission to stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts. The Club also credits the popularity of the Fellowship program to past Fellows and their endorsements of the program to others in the creative community.
The current class of Fellows follows a group including Lola Adesioye, Laura Anderson Barbata, Chellis Baird, Silvie Cheng, Queen Esther, Ash Goh Hua, Savannah Knoop, Jessica Frances Grégoire Lancaster, JoAnne McFarland, Barkha Patel, and Cassandra Zampini. Over the course of their Fellowships, these artists exhibited and curated work in the Club’s galleries, gave featured performances at the club, and found collaborators within the NAC’s vibrant creative community.
The NAC Artist Fellowship Program selects a multidisciplinary group of artists who offer fresh perspectives on their respective crafts and supports the artistic development of the Fellows by granting them, along with the year of full membership to the NAC, based in the landmarked Samuel Tilden mansion in New York City’s Gramercy Park, the ability to take advantage of the mansion’s exhibition, working, and meeting spaces, to engage and network with the club’s diverse and prestigious community of members, and to participate in the more than 150 public programs offered throughout the year. They also have access to overnight accommodations and dining options.
“The National Arts Club is celebrating its 125th anniversary season, and these 14 young artists accompany us on our journey into a shared creative future,” said David Doty, President of the National Arts Club. “From our beginnings and straight through to today, the NAC has always valued and exhibited art from the past and even more so art from the present, and these new Artist Fellows embody expression as it enlivens and educates the world today. We are proud to have them with us, and we look forward to their taking full advantage of what this honor makes possible for us and them.”
“Along with everyone on the panel, I’m looking forward to getting to know such a varied and dynamic group of makers,” said JoAnne McFarland, a 2022-23 Artist Fellow and member of this year’s selection committee. “Being a Fellow at the National Arts Club turned out to be even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I made new friends, learned about the Club’s rich history, and even got to mount an exhibition in two of NAC’s elegant galleries. It was an incredible opportunity, one I’m glad 14 others now get to enjoy.”
2023/2024 NAC ARTIST FELLOWS
Jeanette Andrews is an artist, magician, and speaker. Andrews’ work focuses on the development of the seemingly impossible via performance, sculpture, installation, and audio. She has presented numerous commissioned works with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Quebec City Biennial, presented talks for Cooper Hewitt, Chicago Ideas Week, The British Society of Aesthetics, corporations, and universities, including Columbia, MIT, and Harvard. She has been an artist-in-residence for the University of Houston’s Mitchell Center and Affiliate of metaLab (at) Harvard. Illusion is Andrews’ life’s work and her performances have been praised by the Chicago Tribune, PBS, and the New York Times.
Yacine Boulares is a French-Tunisian saxophonist and composer based in Brooklyn. His many influences urged him to seek his own identity and explore North and West African rhythms, leading to the creation of AJOYO, a mystic brew of African tradition, jazz, and soul. In 2019 Yacine was selected to be a part of the Joe’s Pub Working Group to develop his newest project IFRIQIYA, a multimedia performance exploring the Afro Tunisian rhythmic traditions. In 2021 Yacine co-founded the Habibi Festival in New York, a four day festival dedicated to contemporary Arabic culture.
Lydia Cornett is a Baltimore-born filmmaker currently based in Brooklyn, New York. As a former musician turned film director and composer, she makes work that explores the contours of labor, language and artistic expression across nonfiction and experimental forms.
Rodney Ewing is a visual artist, whose drawings, installations, and mixed media works focus on his need to intersect body and place, memory, and fact, and to re- examine human histories, cultural conditions, and trauma. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, Jack Shainman Gallery: The School, The Drawing Center in NY, Jack Fisher Gallery and most recently at Rena Bransten Gallery. Ewing is a grantee of the Pollock Krasner award (2022), and his work has recently been included in the collections of Tufts University Art Gallery, The Fine Arts Museums San Francisco, and Harvard Art Museums.
Liliana Farber is a Uruguayan-born, New York-based, visual artist. Through research-based processes and digital strategies, Farber investigates notions of land imaginaries, unmappable spaces, utopias, and techno-colonialism. Her works were exhibited at The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Lisbon; The Center for Books Art, New York; Ars Electronica, Linz; Arebyte Gallery, London; Panke Gallery, Berlin; and Oblique Nuage Gallery, Paris. Farber’s work was supported by the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology, Artis grant, Asylum Arts, Off Site Projects, Wassaic Projects, Nars Foundation, On Curating, and MIT’s Leonardo Journal.
Pala Garcia is a New York-based violinist and founding member of Longleash, a critically acclaimed trio specializing in contemporary and experimental chamber music. Her creative work explores the variable nature of interpretation and memory.
Lindy Giusta (She/They) is a mixed media artist hailing from sunny San Diego and now resides in Brooklyn. Lindy is a passionate, queer, outsider artist depicting portraits in various mediums with a speciality of capturing human emotions and experiences in her work.
Caroline Golum is a filmmaker and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She is a contributing editor and occasional podcast co-host for Screen Slate. Her debut feature, A Feast of Man, is streaming on Amazon Prime, Vimeo, and Tubi. Her second feature, Revelations of Divine Love, is in post-production. You can follow her on Twitter @carolineavenue.
Eunbi Kim (She/Her) is a pianist creating intimate experiences that transcend the conventions of the piano recital. A winner of the 2023 Astral Artists National Competition, her credits include solo programs at the Kennedy Center, a concert-meditation performance at Lincoln Center, and a TEDx Talk. Kim is also co-founder of bespoken, a mentorship program for female-identifying and non-binary musicians.
Nancy Ma is an actor, playwright, and filmmaker from Chinatown, New York. She studies grief, memory, language, and home in her art. Her work has been supported by NYFA, BRIC Arts Media, The New Harmony Project, Fresh Ground Pepper, Museum of Chinese in America, and more.
Thomas March is a New York-based poet, essayist, and performer. His current work involves close collaborations with visual and musical artists.
Eto Otitigbe is a polymedia artist whose interdisciplinary practice includes sculpture, performance, installation, and public art. His public art intersects history, community, and biophilic design by using parametric modeling and generative design to transform historical and cultural references into biomorphic forms and patterns that reference nature. Otitigbe’s public works includes temporary installations in Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, NY) and Randall’s Island Park (New York, NY). He was a member of the Design Team for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at UVA (Charlottesville, VA, 2019). Otitigbe’s work has been in solo and group exhibitions that include 2013 Bronx Calling: The Second AIM Biennial, organized by the Bronx Museum and Wave Hill; Abandoned Orchestra, Sound Sculpture installation and performance with Zane Rodulfo, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; The Golden Hour, Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, GA, curated by Oshun D. Layne; and Bronx: Africa, Longwood Gallery, Bronx, NY, curated by Atim Oton and Leronn P. Brooks.
Kebra-Seyoun Charles is a double-bassist, composer, and musician. After winning first prize in the 2022 Sphinx Competition, Charles has quickly made a name for themself by soloing in front of orchestras such as the New World Symphony, Sphinx Virtuosi, Indianapolis Symphony, and the Willmington Symphony. With a strong connection to jazz, gospel, and classical music, Charles’s compositions explore what it means to combine these words into a new musical idiom.
Anastasiya Tarasenko is a Ukrainian-American visual artist based in New York City. She uses primarily oil painting, drawing, watercolor, and sculpture to create intricate storytelling scenes inspired by human foibles, folk tales, and mythology.
The NAC Artist Fellowship is a program of the NAC Education Committee, chaired by Catherine Kleszczewski and Paul Schwendener. The 2023/2024 NAC Artist Fellows were selected by a jury led by Paul Schwendener, member of the NAC Board of Governors. Other jurors included John Mhiripiri, Director of Anthology Film Archives; JoAnne McFarland, artist, poet, curator, and Artistic Director of the Artpoetica Project Space; Yuki James, stylist, fashion editor, and photographer with contributions to Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, The New York Times, and other prominent online publications, as well as solo shows at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery and NAC; David Masello, NAC Board Member, Executive Editor of Milieu, and essayist and poet, with pieces appearing in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fine Art Connoisseur; and Vanessa Reed, President/CEO of New Music USA.
About National Arts Club:
Founded in 1898, the National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts. Annually, the Club offers more than 150 free programs to the public, including exhibitions, theatrical and musical performances, and lectures and readings, attracting an audience of more than 30,000 members of the general public. Featured programs focus on all disciplines of the arts.
For a full list of events or to learn more, please visit nationalartsclub.org.
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