Artist Grant Recipients

Every year, PAAM awards the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant to under-recognized American painters over the age of 45 who demonstrate financial need.

This exhibition features the 2022 grant recipients: Lupita Carrasco of Colorado Springs, CO; Qingling Guo of Livingston, NJ; and Christopher McLean of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The three were awarded a total of $36,000.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lupita Carrasco

Lupita Carrasco is a forty-five-year-old artist, wife, and mother of seven children. She has also been the sole caregiver to her mother, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, since 2002. Born and raised in San Diego, California, her tumultuous childhood and vibrant Mexican culture lend their voice to her artistic language. Existential connectivity, intimate wonder, and belonging are familiar themes found in her paintings.

Lupita’s work revolves around survival. Allowing herself to break open in the most vulnerable of places, she explores how trauma affects self-worth, self-care, and the ability to love and nurture others. Family, friends, and the environment she is intimately acquainted with are at the heart of her work. She pairs images from hikes, interactions between her children, mothering activities, and places she longs to be, showing a perceived interpretation of the self, familial relationships, and the monotony of domestic obligations. A mother perpetually caught between raising her own children and mothering a parent. Art is an avenue for processing her measure of the human condition.

Christopher McLean

Chris McLean’s artworks are visual exemplifications of Neuro-diverse experiences. Combining sensory with conceptual his work builds bridges connecting viewers with Autistic Spectrum Experiences making a statement for the acknowledgment of human variables. Through a variety of mediums: Watercolor, Digital Printing and Public Works, he underscores these experiences in daily interactions while creating conversations about human variables within an intensified information culture. Chris earned a BFA in Painting from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design as well as an MFA in Printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute. He lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is an avid bicyclist and is often followed around by cats.

Qingling Guo

Qingling Guo is a visual artist who lives and works in New Jersey. She graduated from the Stage Art Department of Shanghai Theatre Acadeay. and is design director of the Creek Art Center (2004-2007) and Fei Contemporary Art Center (FCAC).

Her works which boast for its strong social practicality and intervention mainly focus on exploring women from different dimensions in life through paintings, videos, installation arts and radio dramas. Since 2014, Guo has begun painting images of a lower-class demographic, factory girls and single women in the cities, portraying the anxiety and malaise which manifests their lives which reflects more complex social issues. The “Backgrounds 2” series was created soon after Qingling Guo immigrated to the US in 2016. It represents a kind of feeling of interpersonal alienation between people and highlights the living conditions of women of different racial and cultural identities.

ABOUT THE GRANT

The mission of this grant is to promote public awareness of and a commitment to American art, and to encourage interest in painters who lack adequate recognition.

Recipients are selected by a diverse group of jurors—artists, curators, professors, writers—based on the strength of the materials submitted in this application as well as the perceived adherence to the spirit of the grant: to assist under recognized artists. Awards include a cash grant, ranging from $5,000 to $36,000 and an exhibition at PAAM.

The late Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed studied with Hans Hofmann in both New York and Provincetown. They were very active at PAAM as artist members and instructors in the summer school, and they served on a variety of committees throughout their 50 years on Cape Cod. Orlowsky, in particular, was sensitive to the challenges artists face, especially those working against the mainstream or outside of popular schools of art. Her desire to provide financial support to mature artists through this generous endowment gift speaks to her passionate commitment to art for art’s sake and art created regardless of the demands and whims of the marketplace.