Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists
Five Artists Share $140,000 in 2024 Cycle
Five recipients of the Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists have been selected from a field of 147 applicants in the twenty-first annual competition. Nina Ghanbarzadeh (Afkhamian) and Roy F. Staab were chosen in the Established Artist category and will each receive a $35,000 fellowship. Justin Goodrum, Jovanny Hernandez Caballero, and Nicholas Perry will receive Emerging Artist fellowships of $15,000. Each artist will also receive a $5,000 professional development/production budget. All the 2024 fellows are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In addition to receiving an award, the Nohl Fellows participate in an exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art in the summer of 2025 and receive professional development services and studio visits. An exhibition catalogue will be published and disseminated nationally.
The finalists in the Established Artist category are Mike Gibisser, Mariah Tate Klemens, Kim Miller, and Kyle Seis.
The finalists in the Emerging artist category are Amal Azzam, Asher Imtiaz, and Matthew Vivirito.
Headshots, images of the artists’ work, and image credits available at:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/y4drer0g0exa9523m5aax/h?rlkey=sw2l7vvetokackawjhoa9w235
The panel of jurors included Allison Glenn, independent curator and writer, New York, New York; Misa Jeffereis, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri; and Anisa Olufemi, independent curator and Fellowship Manager, Hamiltonian Artists, Washington, DC. We were delighted to bring the jurors to Milwaukee for a public talk and studio visits with all twelve finalists.
More information on the jurors available at: https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/content/nohl-jurors
Funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund and Joy Engine, and administered by the Lynden, the Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists provide unrestricted funds for artists to create new work or complete work in progress. The program is open to practicing artists residing in the four-county area (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties). The Nohl Fellowship is part of a constellation of artist-supporting programs administered by Lynden that includes the Ruth Arts Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award and a Suitcase Fund for exporting work by local artists beyond the four-county area.
Artist Mary L. Nohl of Fox Point, Wisconsin, died in December 2001 at the age of 87. She left a $9.6 million bequest to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Her fund supports local visual arts and education programs, keeping her passion for the visual arts alive in the community.
About the Fellows
Established Artists
NINA GHANBARZADEH (AFKHAMIAN)
Nina Ghanbarzadeh (Afkhamian) is a visual artist whose work is informed by the geometric and biomorphic patterns, colors, and textures of her Persian cultural traditions. Taking visual cues from the shapes and lines of written language, she uses a wide range of mediums and tools to create works that extend the urgent contemporary dialogue around why some cultures’ traditions are accepted while others are dismissed.
Ghanbarzadeh emigrated from Tehran, Iran in 2001. She earned her BFA in painting, drawing and graphic design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2013 and completed a two-year Artist in Residence Program with Redline Milwaukee in 2015. She is the recipient of the Student Silver ADDY, Fredric R. Layton Foundations Scholarship, and winner of Best in Show at the 2020 Wisconsin Biennial. In 2019, she launched ARTkee Educational Toys, a company which produces SOFTwords, kits of basic shapes that allow children to explore the shapes as images as well as text. Nina draws inspiration for her educational toy business and her art from cultural differences and the limitations of language. Photo credit: Erin Bloodgood
https://www.ninaghanbarzadeh.com
ROY F. STAAB
Roy F. Staab is an established artist, sculptor, and “drawer-in-space” who works in nature to create geometric forms. Born in Milwaukee, he studied at the Layton School of Art, the Milwaukee Institute of Technology, and received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Originally influenced by abstract expressionism, he left Milwaukee for Europe, where he continued to study art on his own, eventually landing in Paris. There, he experimented with painting and drawing techniques. Relocating to New York City in 1980 and building upon his graphic research, Roy turned to nature, using natural materials to “draw” his outdoor installations. Suddenly, his art embraced the largeness of nature by responding to specific sites. Land art brought him to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and back to Europe to make art in private spaces and public symposiums. Based in Milwaukee, he makes art in his backyard in West Allis, in fallow fields, and in public spaces both here and abroad. A recipient of many prestigious awards and honors, Staab lectures and curates, but most of all he enjoys the challenge of creating land art installations.
http://roystaab.blogspot.com/
Emerging Artists
JUSTIN GOODRUM
Justin Goodrum is a director, producer, and writer. He worked with NBCLX to direct and produce a short documentary on mental health disparities in Milwaukee’s Black community. His company, Good Entertainment, was honored to be chosen to present at the 2021 Culture, Heath, and Wellbeing International conference in the United Kingdom. Justin was a participant in Firelight Media’s 2021 Groundwork Lab with his film, The Stigma of the Durag. The film explores his personal experience of being labeled a gang member at a predominantly white college for wearing a durag. The Stigma of the Durag premiered at the 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival where it won Honorable Mention. The film aired on Milwaukee PBS Black Nouveau in 2023. For the last three years, Justin has been producing One Minute Remaining, an independent feature length documentary exposing the social and economic burden of incarceration on women. Currently in post-production, the film will be released in 2024. Justin is currently in pre-production for his first feature film, which tackles mental health disparities in the Black community through a familiar and entertaining genre. This project won Brico Forward Fund awards, Milwaukee’s largest independent film grant, in 2022 and 2023. Goodrum is also a participant in Milwaukee Film’s 2023 Focus Finder filmmaking accelerator program.
https://justingoodrum.com/
JOVANNY HERNANDEZ CABALLERO
Jovanny Hernandez Caballero is a community artist and photographer based in Milwaukee. He is a first-generation American and descendant of Mixtecs, an Indigenous people based in present-day Mexico. His work centers around themes of cultural heritage and identity. Through his photography, Jovanny documents the beauty of Milwaukee's South Side and his family's native land of Oaxaca, Mexico. He seeks to showcase the richness and diversity of his community, celebrating its people, culture, and traditions. His work has been recognized and showcased in various venues, including "Creating Milwaukee," a mini-documentary series produced by Nō Studios that highlights Milwaukee creatives across various disciplines. He received the gener8tor Art X Sherman Phoenix grant, was an Artist in Residence at Arts@Large and is currently at Mitchell Street Arts. He completed his BFA in Photography & Imaging at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2023. Photo credit: John Romero Nance
https://www.jovannyhernandezart.com/
NICHOLAS PERRY
Nicholas Perry is a painter based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts in 2018. Nicholas makes figurative paintings that draw on art-historical influences, personal photography, and other visual languages. These different forms of imagery are reinterpreted during the process of painting to create individuals in solitary spaces. For him, painting offers a place to propose questions about representation within abstract compositions. His work explores the history of painting, and particularly portraiture: how a portrait reveals the characteristics of a person through formal and fictional narratives within the alcove of the frame. Nicholas uses portraiture to investigate ideas such as sincerity, obsession, isolation, and anxiety. His work has been published in New American Paintings Midwest Edition (issues 137 and 149) and was selected for the 2018 Wisconsin Artist Biennial at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. In 2019 he had a solo exhibition at The Alice Wilds titled By Themselves. Photo credit: Daniel McCullough
http://nsperry.com/
Past Fellows
2023
Established
Mikal Floyd-Pruitt
Janelle VanderKelen
Emerging
Siara Berry
Fatima Laster
Alayna N. Pernell
2022
Established
Valaria Tatera
Jason S. Yi
Emerging
John W. Balsley
Inna Dmitrieva
Molly Hassler
2020
Established
Ck Ledesma
Nirmal Raja
Emerging
Janelle Gramling
Rosy Petri
Leah Schretenthaler
2019
Established
Cecelia Condit
Ras ‘Ammar Nsoroma
Emerging
Vaughan Larsen
LaNia Sproles
Natasha Woods
2018
Established
Chris Cornelius
Keith Nelson
Emerging
Nazlı Dinçel
Makeal Flammini
Rosemary Ollison
2017
Established
Tom Berenz
Lois Bielefeld
Emerging
Sara Caron
Sky Hopina
Ariana Vaeth
2016
Established
Jesse McClean
Joseph Mougel
Emerging
Rose Curley
Robin Jebavy
Brook Thiele
2015
Established
Jon Horvath
Frankie Latina
Emerging
Ben Balcom
Zach Hill
Maggie Sasso
2014
Established
Anne Kingsbury
Shana McCaw & Brent Budsberg
John Riepenhoff
Emerging
Emily Belknap
Jenna Knapp
Erik Ljung
Kyle Seis
2013
Established
Ray Chi
Sheila Held
Special Entertainment (Andrew Swant & Bobby Ciraldo)
Emerging
Cris Siqueira
Tim Stoelting
Eddie Villanueva
Josh Weissbach
2012
Established
Danielle Beverly
Faythe Levine
Colin Matthes
Emerging
Lois Bielefeld
Tyanna J. Buie
Brad Fiore
Brad Kjelland
2011
Established
Nicholas Lampert
Brad Lichtenstein
Sonja Thomsen
Emerging
American Fantasy Classics
Richard Galling
Hans Gindlesberger
Sarah Luther
2010
Established
Brent Coughenour
Paul Druecke
Waldek Dynerman
Emerging
Sarah Buccheri
Neil Gravander
Ashley Morgan
Chris Thompson
2009
Established
Peter Barrickman
Harvey Opgenorth
Emerging
Kim Miller
John Riepenhoff
2008
Established
Brent Budsberg & Shana McCaw
Xav Leplae
Iverson White
Emerging
Tate Bunker
Bobby Ciraldo & Andrew Swant (Special Entertainment)
Frankie Latina
Barbara Miner
2007
Established
Gary John Gresl
Mark Klassen
Dan Ollman
Emerging
Annie Killelea
Faythe Levine
Colin Matthes
Kevin J. Miyazaki
2006
Established
Santiago Cucullu
Scott Reeder
Chris Smith
Emerging
donebestdone
Dan Klopp
Christopher Niver
Marc Tasman
2005
Established
Nicolas Lampert
Fred Stonehouse
Jason S. Yi
Emerging
Juan Juarez
Michael K. Julian
Mat Rappaport
Steve Wetzel
2004
Established
Terese Agnew
Cecelia Condit
Jennifer Montgomery
Emerging
William Andersen
James Barany
Steven Burnham
Frankie Martin
2003
Established
Dick Blau
Michael Howard
Mark Mulhern
Emerging
Paul Amitai
Peter Barrickman
Mark Escribano
Liz Smith
For information on past recipients, click here.
