It’s the kind of news everyone wants to receive at least once in their life – getting the news “you won!". Today, six visual artists are about to get such positive news as they read this piece to learn they are the recipients of the 2020 NOT REAL ART Grant.
NOT REAL ART aspires to honor artists invaluable contributions to human culture by empowering their careers in meaningful, thoughtful and relevant ways. As an organization, NOT REAL ART exists to celebrate and elevate creative culture by empowering artists, helping artists tell their stories and promote their art.
“I created NOT REAL ART with the aspiration to help artists tell their stories and promote their work. We do this with the NOT REAL ART podcast and blog, through our events and conferences, and with our artist grants," says Scott "Sourdough" Power, the creator of NOT REAL ART.
Founded in 2019 in collaboration with Art Share LA, NOT REAL ART's Grant program selects recipients based on the quality of their submitted art works and written application. Top factors considered in every submission include: artistic originality, technical prowess and a sense of character and values, especially as it relates to democratizing art and disrupting the status quo of the conventional art world.
Competition for the grant this year was significant. Consequently, the evaluation process proved challenging due to the large number of high quality submissions. To analyze the plethora of excellent grant submissions, NOT REAL ART'S panel of judges was comprised of professional independent artists and arts professionals including:
MonaLisa Whitaker, a contemporary visual artist working in photography and mixed media with a BA in Art History; Heidi Johnson, an accomplished arts publicist and artist manager, and owner of the PR firm, Hijinx Arts; Man One, a contemporary artist, creative entrepreneur, and co-founder of Crewest Studio; Cheyanne Sauter, Executive Director of Art Share L.A., and sitting board member of the Los Angeles River and Business Association and the Arts District Business Improvement District; and Scott “Sourdough” Power, creator of NOT REAL ART and co-founder of Crewest Studio.
Recipients of the 2020 NOT REAL ART Grant will each receive financial assistance of $2,000 along with exclusive promotions on NOT REAL ART podcasts, social channels, and events including featured online interviews and a group exhibition at Art Share LA in the fall of 2020. Grant recipients also get complimentary tickets to the 2021 NOT REAL ART Creators Conference next spring in Los Angeles. Now, without further ado...
NOT REAL ART Presents its 2020 Class of Grant Recipients:
Jacqueline Valenzuela
Los Angeles – based artist, Jacqueline Valenzuela is a first-generation Mexican-American whose greatest influences were her father and older brother. Her creative interests were nurtured by her immigrant parents and the subcultures that were common within her community. These influences ranged from the underground punk scene in East L.A. to the candied lowriders she saw cruising Whittier Blvd. on Sunday mornings. By focusing on female lowriders like herself, Valenzuela is able to bring their stories to a wider audience than would otherwise be unaware of women who cruise. Using bold colors, portraiture and the urban landscape she creates compositions that emphasize femininity in a male-dominated world.
Jorge Kreimer a.k.a., Gershon Kreimer
Los Angeles-based, Gershon Kreimer graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. His photographic nudes - stark, unadorned and unabashedly austere, ensure that the emotional connection with the viewer remains intact, integral and entirely reflective of both Kreimer and the subject. Kreimer’s images, stripped away of any distracting adornments, are testimonies and tributes to the power of a single subject living in a void. Kreimer’s work is in numerous private collections in the cities of Los Angeles, New York, London, Miami, and Lima, Peru.
Kiara Aileen Machado
Kiara Aileen Machado was born in Lynwood, California and received her BFA with honors in Painting and Drawing from California State University Long Beach. Machado’s cultural background as Guatemalan and Salvadoran is central to her work. Through this cultural framework, her work explores the complexities of intersecting identities and Central American diaspora in Southern California. Machado has exhibited work throughout Southern California. Her work has also reached venues beyond California, including the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, and Frederic Jameson Gallery at Duke University in North Carolina. Her work has also been recognized internationally as part of “Art Without Borders” in Florence, Italy.
Miki Yokoyama
Born in Fukushima, Japan, and currently residing in Los Angeles, Miki Yokoyama is an autodidact working across multiple mediums including canvas, objet d'art, murals, and live performance. As she explores themes of life, death, and transformation, she shares her vision of the universe as a transient, interconnected experience ripe with the potential for beauty, discovery, and rebirth. Miki’s work and collaborations with fellow artists have been exhibited at locations including the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, the San Diego Art Institute, the World Art Day Gala, and the Italian Consulate General’s residence in Osaka, Japan. She has created murals that can be seen at locations across Los Angeles as well as in Japan
Paloma Montoya
Los Angeles-based artist Paloma Montoya finds her inspiration in her upbringing and experience as a “woman of color living in a working-class community.” Raised in the city of South Gate, California Moreno was raised by her Colombian-born mother and maternal grandmother. “The content of my work is strongly influenced by my upbringing around these women. I tend to explore topics such as love, female sexuality, women within my community of South East Los Angeles and women of sub-cultures such as hip-hop, punk, and Chicano culture. I attempt to capture influences of the city of Los Angeles where I spent my life living. My style captures the bold lines and colors seen in graffiti all around Los Angeles.”
Tijera Williams
Tijera S. Williams is a multimedia painter, photographer, and design artist from Long Beach, California. As a child, Tijera began as a self-taught artist with dreams of becoming a professional artist as great as her early influences – Matisse, Michelangelo, and Picasso. With great fascinations of the Italian Renaissance throughout the 14th and 16th centuries, a love for vibrant colors, color relations, and an obsession for puzzles and deep thought, this same love motivated Tijera to integrate her personal life into the work that she creates today.
