THE 2009-2010 FAWC VISUAL ARTS FELLOWS

Nadia Ayarin moved from Tunisia to the United States in 2000. She completed a BA in Art History at Boston University in 2004, and a Certificate of Fine Arts from Brandeis University in 2005. In 2007, she earned her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2006. In 2008, she had her first solo show, at Mehr Gallery in New York. In 2009, her work was included in Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at the Saatchi Gallery in London; and On Paper at Monica De Cardenas Gallery in Zuoz, Switzerland. Her second solo show opens November 2009 at Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy, where will also be participating in Artissima 16. Second-year Fellow Taylor Baldwin is an artist from Tucson. He received a bachelor's degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and a master's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007. He has recently been awarded a fellowship at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. He has exhibited work in New York; Washington, D.C.; Providence; Richmond; and Istanbul. He works through sculpture and drawing-almost exclusively with materials that are found, salvaged, borrowed, bartered, recovered, donated, or stolen. If there is anything that you may have that you want removed from your possession, contact him, as he will likely take it from you. Matt Bollinger, born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, received his BFA in Painting and Creative Writing from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. In the summer of 2008, he was an artist-in-residence at the Seven Below Arts Initiative in Northern Vermont. His solo exhibition, "The Hypnotism," was shown at Plane Space in New York, also in 2008. His recent drawings examine growing up in the Midwest through the lenses of adolescent angst and romanticism. www.mattbollinger.com Robin Mandel is an artist working in sculpture, drawing, and installation. His recent exhibition venues include the Green Street Gallery in Boston; the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts; Real Art Ways in Hartford; and the Freedman Gallery at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. He has also exhibited in Portland, Maine; New York; Montreal; Venice; and Barcelona. He has been awarded grants from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston, and residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado and the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. From 2007 to 2008 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He has also taught at RISD and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Elizabeth Mooney is an artist originally from Boston Massachusetts and resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She received her Masters Degree in Painting from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2007. She studied as an undergraduate at the Lorenzo De Medici School in Florence Italy and received her BFA in painting and printmaking from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University.  Elizabeth has attended  residencies at La Cipressaia in Montagnana, Italy in 2001 and 2003. She is currently represented by Michael Rosenthal Gallery in San Francisco, CA. www.elizabethmooney.com Second-year Fellow Leslie Murray received a BFA from the Maine College of Art in 2008 and has returned there as a visiting critic. She has interned at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, worked as a studio assistant for Michael Mazur, and exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, Maine, the Hudson D. Walker Gallery at FAWC, and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. www.leslieclairemurray.com Sarah Peters graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996 and a Certificate in sculpture from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1995. In 2008, she completed a year-long Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Fellowship. She has exhibited nationally, and her 2007 solo exhibition, Being American, at Winkleman Gallery in New York, was reviewed in the New York Times by Roberta Smith, among others. Sarah Peters is the recipient of three John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Artist Residencies, the Emerging Artist Residency from Pilchuck Glass School, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant. www.sarahpetersart.com Martin Smick was born in 1977 in Beverly, Massachusetts. He earned his bachelor's degree in painting from Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. He has spent extended periods living in Paris studying both at the Sorbonne in 1997 and as a resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in 2000. Since 2001, he has earned his living as a muralist and decorative painter, in Los Angeles and New York, working for the architectural restoration firm Evergreene Painting Studios. Notable projects he has participated in include a Richard Haas mural in Brooklyn completed in 2006 and murals for the Atlantis Hotel and Resort in Dubai. Last June, Martin completed his MFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Kirsten Ullrich was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has received degrees in painting from the University of Cincinnati and Temple University's Tyler School of Art, in Philadelphia. Her work acts as a record of her free associations, with subject matter that is mischievous, irreverent, and absurd. Impulsivity and humor inform her material choices as well. Her body of work includes drawing, painting on large and small scale, and, to a smaller extent, sculpture. www.kirstenullrich.com Jacob Yanes was born in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He attended St. John's College in Santa Fe and Brandeis University, and has lived and worked in Boston and New York. Currently based in Los Angeles, he received his MFA from UCLA in 2008, and was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.