We are excited to announce the SGCI 2025 award winners—

Pictured, left to right:
Gino Castellanos, Emerging Printmaker Award recipient
John Hitchcock, Excellence in Teaching Award recipient
Reinaldo Gil Zambrano, Mid-Career Printmaker recipient 

Gino Castellanos has been honored with the 2025 Emerging Printmaker Award, recognizing an early-career artist who shows exceptional promise and demonstrates excellence in their creative contributions to the field of printmaking. Gino Castellanos is a Cuban printmaker and graphic designer who obtained his bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Florida Atlantic University in 2020. He’s currently a freelance designer and artist based in South Florida, USA. Gino obtained his MFA in Studio art with an emphasis in printmaking from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2024.
Gino’s first 16 years of life were spent on the island of Cuba, where he was raised and lived in a different culture. From living in Cuba, Florida, and Tennessee, he has seen and experienced widely different cultures and living conditions and met a diverse number of people who continue to influence his perspective and understanding of the world. Since beginning his career as an artist Gino has been in over 50 group and selected exhibitions around the U.S, 2 solo exhibitions, and has been engaged in service with his communities as well as several academic institutions. He’s currently teaching at Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach State College.

John Hitchcock has received the 2025 Excellence in Teaching Award, which is granted to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to teaching printmaking and has demonstrated excellence in their own creative work. John Hitchcock is a contemporary artist and musician. Hitchcock is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and Comanche and Northern European descent based out of Madison, Wisconsin. He is originally from Medicine Park, Oklahoma. Hitchcock currently works in multimedia including neon, textiles, printmaking, sound, and video to reclaim narratives of resilience and survival. He uses visual storytelling to understand his relationships to community, land, and culture. Hitchcock’s artwork consists of abstract representations, language and intense color referencing his Kaku’s (Comanche grandmothers) beadwork and regalia. His artworks are based on his childhood memories and stories of growing up in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma on Comanche Tribal lands next to the US field artillery military base Ft Sill.  Many of the images are interpretations of stories told by his Kiowa/Comanche grandparents and abstract representations influenced by beadwork and intercultural identities.
He earned his MFA in printmaking and photography at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and received his BFA from Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma. He has been the recipient of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant, New York; Jerome Foundation Grant, Minnesota; the Creative Arts Award and Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin. He is currently an Artist and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches screenprinting, relief cut, and installation art.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano has been honored with the 2025 Mid-Career Award, which is given to a mid-career artist who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of printmaking with demonstrated excellence in their own creative work. Reinaldo Gil Zambrano is an award-winning printmaking artist from Caracas, Venezuela, living and working in Spokane, Washington. RGZ is an assistant professor of Printmaking at Gonzaga University, co-founder of the Spokane Print & Publishing Center, Art Commissioner for the State of Washington, and Spanish language host of the Hello, Print Friend podcast. In collaboration with Spokane-based non-profits, RGZ developed Spokane Print Fest, an annual event celebrating all things printmaking, offering live printing demonstrations and exhibiting artworks promoting accessible printmaking to the broader community. RGZ has produced twelve short documentaries about contemporary printmaking, with a 20-minute feature on Oaxacan printmaking in post-production.

In addition to cash awards, these artists will receive waived registration, travel allowances and housing to the 2026 SGCI conference, where they will present their work and research.
Congratulations to these artists and to the finalists nominated for these awards.

And…….

Congratulations to the SGCI 2024 Graduate and Undergraduate Fellowship, the Awagami Paper, and the Gamblin Awardees, left to right, top to bottom: 

Mariah Dechant, SGCI Undergraduate Fellowship Award recipient
Rae Helms, SGCI Graduate Fellowship Award recipient 
Madeline Goolie, Gamblin Undergraduate Award recipient
Jill Ho-You, Gamblin Mid-Career Printmaking Award
Jacq Garcia, Gamblin Emerging Printmaker Award
Ruth Alvarez Luna, Awagami Paper Award recipient

Mariah Dechant, a Senior at Fort Hays State University, is the recipient of the Undergraduate Fellowship Award. She is the recipient of the Community Foundation of Southwest Kansas scholarship for academic excellence, the Black & Gold Scholarship from FHSU and has placed multiple times in the annual Student Honors Exhibition. Mariah has also exhibited work in multiple cities in Kansas and California. 

Rae Helms, a graduate student at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, is the recipient of the Graduate Fellowship Award. They received their BFA in Printmaking and BA in Art History from California State University, Chico. Helms received the Jennifer Tancreto Award, and the Dean’s Award at CSUC, and the Dean’s Grant at Tyler. Helms’ prior roles include being curatorial assistant at the Janet Turner Printmaking Museum, a studio technician, and a teaching assistant. Their work has been exhibited in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphi

Madeline Eileen Goolie (MEG) is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Washington State University and is the recipient of the Gamblin Undergraduate Award. A printmaker and multimedia artist from Anchorage, Alaska, she specializes in linoleum block relief and reduction prints. Madeline actively showcases her work at galleries, fairs, and artist markets throughout the Inland Northwest and Alaska.

Jill Ho-You, who has been granted the Gamblin Mid-Career Printmaking Award, is an Associate Professor in Print Media at the Alberta University of the Arts. Her practice explores the intersection of trauma, embodied memory, and the environment through a mixture of print media, bioArt, and installation. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Open Studio in Toronto, ON and The New Gallery in Calgary, AB. She has also participated in numerous group shows such as at the International Print Center New York, USA; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Japan; and the International print Triennial in Krakow, PL.

Jacq Garcia, has been granted the Gamblin Emerging Artist Award, and is a queer, nonbinary, latine multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the intersections of community, fatness, food, and sexuality. They received their BFA from the University of Houston and they earned their MFA at Ohio University. Their work has been shown both nationally and internationally including in ELLIO Fine Art in Houston, Texas, Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio, KINK Contemporary in Cleveland, Ohio, and University of Sharjah in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
They organize Fat Print- a yearly print exchange portfolio with a varying theme exclusively for fat artists by fat artists.
They are the founder of Fat Artist Network, a non-profit organization that serves as a resource to find information on fat art, fat artists, fat art lectures, fat artist talks, and connect fat artists to each other.

Ruth Alvarez Luna is the recipient of the Awagami Paper Award.  Ruth Alvarez was born in Durango, Mexico. At 14, her family moved to the United States, seeking the “promise” of the American dream. The cultural shock made her more aware of her identity and the role that intersectionality plays within society. While earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at the Metropolitan State University of Denver (2025) and participating in various migrant programs that promote education for young migrants, she discovered her passion for art and helping others. Ruth’s philosophy is rooted in introspection and social justice. She uses art for communication and social criticism, addressing immigration, discrimination, and machismo to inspire social change.

These awards include cash honorariums, exhibition opportunities or art products, and gift cards.
Congratulations to you all! We can’t wait to honor you in person at the conference!

A heartfelt thank you to the SGCI Membership for your votes, and to the 2025 SGCI Awards Nomination Review Panel: Aaron Coleman, Luanda Lozano, and Kit MacNeil.

2025 Awards Nomination Review Panel

Luanda Lozano holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Parsons The New School of Design in New York.
Her career in printmaking began in the early 1990s at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Luanda was part of the teaching staff at the Bronx River Art Center for almost a decade, where she taught drawing and printmaking. Other places where she has taught include: Center for Contemporary Prints in Norwalk, Connecticut; Pelham Art Center in New York, Escuela de Bellas Artes in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Museum for African Art, New York and Artist Proof Studio in South Africa. She is a founding member of the printmaking group Dominican York Proyecto Grafica (DYPG). Her prints are part of several prestigious collections, among them: Kanagawa Museum Print
Collection in Japan; Museo Nacional del Grabado, Argentina; Varna Museum, Bulgaria; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey (Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Portfolio 2000); Library of Congress, USA (Robert Blackburn Print Collection); The Smithsonian American Art
Museum  (DYPG portfolio Manifestaciones); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (DYPG portfolios) National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Florean Museum in Maramures, Romania, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among others.