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DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award

2023 APPLICATION RESOURCES

Application Deadlines

 

  • February 27, 2023
  • May 15, 2023
  • August 14, 2023
  • November 3, 2023

All submissions are due by noon on the deadline date.

Note: Applications are reviewed quarterly but may be submitted at any time throughout the year. Applications received after the quarterly deadline will be included in the next review cycle.

Eligibility & Guidelines

View the 2023 guidelines:
In English
En Español

Draft Deadlines

You can submit a preliminary draft of your application for feedback from our grant services team. Deadlines are:

  • February 5, 2023
  • April 21, 2023
  • July 28, 2023
  • October 20, 2023

All draft review submissions are due by noon on the quarterly draft deadline date.

Award Notification

Applicants will be notified of their status 4-8 weeks after the quarterly deadline.

Open Office Hours

Virtual:
We can answer questions during office hours every other Tuesday from 11 a.m. to noon. Register here.

In-person at Indy Arts Council:
Join us from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 10 and Nov. 2, 2023. Applicants can use our WiFi, get assistance with uploading documents, and request any last-minute support. No registration required.


OPEN TO contemporary visual artists who want to take risks

The DeHaan Artist of Distinction Award supports contemporary visual artists with grants of up to $10,000 to pursue aspirational projects. The finished projects are also featured at a special exhibition at Gallery 924 at the Indy Arts Council. The program is open to artists who are based in Indiana. 

In 2017, the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation and the Indy Arts Council launched the program to allow artists to explore, take risks and push their creative practice in dynamic new ways. 

 


APPLICATION REVIEW

Applications are reviewed quarterly but may be submitted at any time throughout the year. All submissions are due by noon on the quarterly deadline date. Applications received after the quarterly deadline will be included in the next review cycle.

Upon selection of the award recipient(s), those applications that were not successfully funded will be reopened so that applicants can make edits to their original application and re-submit for a future deadline.

Grant awards are subject to the availability of funds for up to six contemporary artists each year. 

Ready to apply? Click here.

Questins? Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


PANELISTS

Our 2023 panelists are Jade Powers, Harn Museum of Art; Melynne Klaus, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation; Anita Field, Clay and Textile Artist; Fari Nzinga, Speed Museum; and Julia Muney Moore, Indy Arts Council.


DEHAAN ARTIST OF DISTINCTION AWARDEES


2023

Asli Narin
Visual Artist

Asli Narin’s work explores cosmic awareness, coexistence, and connection through image-making. Seeing life as the continuous exploration of the self, she investigates the human experience through forms and abstractions. Her subjects are often the thresholds, dualities, and cycles of life. Narin was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and she has participated in exhibitions nationally and internationally, including in Germany, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

Samantha Ortiz
Visual Artist

Samantha Ortiz is a Brazilian-American visual artist working with the intersection of slow fashion and fine arts. Her work uses a wide variety of media including knitting, painting, language and others, exploring the power of human form and its self healing. She has participated in lectures, workshops, and exhibitions in Venice (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Madrid (Spain), Valparaíso (Chile), Indianapolis, New York, and many cities in Brazil.


2022

Boxx The Artist
Visual Artist

Boxx The Artist synthesizes expressionistic portraiture through acrylic paintings, digital art, and public installations that examines the African Diaspora providing cultural images that honor a marginalized community. Her work captures different elements of life promoting health, wealth, wellness, and celebrating Blackness.

Jennifer Scheuer
Visual Artist & Printmaker

Scheuer’s work addresses themes of history, plants, the body, and healing. She is an assistant professor of printmaking in the Rueff School of Design, Art and Performance at Purdue University. With the support of this award, she will focus her creative practice in exploration of artist books.

Jacinda Russell
Photographer & Bookmaker

Jacinda Russell is a conceptual artist, primarily working in photography and bookmaking. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Texas Gallery, Houston Center for Photography, Eyebeam, and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Jacinda will travel to the Svalbard archipelago to participate in the Arctic Circle Residency where she will create six resin sculptures depicting ice and permafrost loss in various states of disintegration.

Ian Weaver
Multimedia/Visual Artist

Ian Weaver is an artist and Associate Professor at Saint Mary's College, South Bend, IN. He has exhibited nationally, including at the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM); The Chicago Cultural Center; the South Bend Museum of Art; and the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. His residencies include Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts; Ox-Bow; the ISCP Residency, New York; and Yaddo and the Millay Colony, both in upstate New York.

Shamira Wilson
Painter

Shamira Wilson is an interdisciplinary visual artist, farm apprentice, and founder of the studio Wilson Art Lab, based in Indianapolis, IN. She creates artwork based on the geometry of plants. Plants speak in signs and symbols which she translates with paint. Wilson is a member of the Impact 100 giving circle and the Eighteen Artist Collective. Her public artworks can be seen in permanent collections including Indy Arts Council and Indiana State Museum.

Ventiko
Interdisciplinary Artist

Ventiko is a conceptual artist working in photography, film, performative experiences and social practice. Her/their work focuses on de/re-constructing societal positions on identity, specifically sexuality, persona, gender and the state of the modern woman. Ventiko’s works have been exhibited and experienced internationally at art fairs (PULSE, Select, Korean International Art Fair, Sluice, Photo LA), institutions (Tate Modern, MOMA, Queens Museum, Walters Art Museum) and in the public sphere (US, UK, Serbia, Dominican Republic, and Italy). 

See What The 2021 Awardees Did With Their Grants

The Arts Council of Indianapolis is committed to working with the arts and cultural community to cultivate a sector that serves, celebrates, and values every resident of Indianapolis. We envision a city where engagement in the arts is not pre-determined by socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. We believe in a full creative life for all.

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Thank you to our funders

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Indiana Arts Commission
CICF
Clowes Charitable Foundation