Congratulations to our 2023 Awardees!
2023 SGCI Mid-Career Printmaker Awardee
Ericka Walker received a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She lives and works in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she is an Assistant Professor at NSCAD University. Walker’s practice operates on vernacular histories of the graphic arts. Her print works and site-specific murals subvert the propagandistic function of nostalgia in contemporary culture, disputing the civilizing influence and assumed moral authority of nation building in North America. Walker exhibits widely throughout North America and internationally. Her prints are housed in multiple public and private collections, and have been selected for numerous awards.
2023 SGCI Excellence in Teaching Printmaking Awardee
Richard Peterson received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA cum laude from the Instituto Allende/Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico. He worked for Ventura College for 16 years as an adjunct professor in drawing and painting and he started the lithography program in 1984. In 1998 he received a full-time position at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, CA. where he again developed a lithography program in 1999. He was department chair for 19 years and he retired in 2018 after 20 of teaching his passions, drawing and lithography. He has organized, co-organized or participated in 22 portfolios, many exhibited at past Southern Graphics conferences. He was a presenter at SGCI’s conference in 2007 in Richmond, Virginia demonstrating Sharpie Marker lithography. He has received the National Drawing Association’s Award of Excellence, the Dewar’s young artist recognition award for excellence in painting/printmaking in the State of California. He has exhibited his work in the Unite States as well as in France, México and extensively through South America. He holds a U.S. patent for digital lithography, patent number 5,778,790.
2023 SGCI Emerging Printmaker Awardee
J. Leigh Garcia is an artist born and raised in Dallas, TX. Garcia received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from The University of North Texas. Garcia is currently a Print Media and Photography Professor at Kent State University in Kent, OH.
2023 SGCI Graduate Student Fellowship Awardee
Mehdi Darvishi was born in the summer of 1988, coinciding with the Iran – Iraq peace resolution. In his war-stricken hometown, Mehdi grew up unexposed to art galleries and museums. In 2007 he left home to earn a BFA in Painting at the University of Tehran where he learned basic printmaking techniques such as relief and intaglio. After receiving his degree in 2011, his interest in printmaking grew into a life’s pursuit. He has since exhibited in over 30 countries and has participated in numerous global exhibitions, competitions, residencies, and as a visiting artist. His works have been widely collected by museums such as the China Printmaking Museum, the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Art, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and the US Library of Congress. He is currently a first-year MFA candidate at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
2023 SGCI Undergraduate Student Fellowship Awardee
Alexi Johnstone is an artist from Harare, Zimbabwe, and is now based in Helsinki, Finland. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2022, with a focus in printmaking. Using the aesthetic sublimity of natural forms, alongside symbols of human development, Alexi traces the subtle interplay of prosperity, exploitation, awe and annihilation, found in humanity’s relationship to the natural world, and the existential complications that arise from this dynamic.
Gamblin Awardees:
Benjamin Munoz, Anne Klein, and Maya Greenfield
Awagami Awardee:
Alexis Valgardsson