Jul 29, 2024 | Press Releases

The Ford Family Foundation Names Three Oregon Visual Artists as Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts for 2024

New fellows join 52 peers selected over the last 14 years of the Hallie Ford fellowship program.

Roseburg, Oregon: The Ford Family Foundation today named its 2024 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts, recognizing three Oregon visual artists for excellence.

A jury of five arts professionals from within and outside of Oregon selected Marcus Fischer and Sam Hamilton of Portland and Charlene Liu of Eugene, from a competitive pool of 179 applicants. They will receive a $35,000 unrestricted award to support their practice.

“Charlene, Marcus and Sam are blazing paths through the contemporary art world,” said Kara Inae Carlisle, president and CEO of The Ford Family Foundation. “They are living into the vision Hallie Ford held for robust and transformative visual arts here in Oregon.”

The jurists individually considered and then further reviewed the applicants in an in-person panel. They determined that each awardee demonstrates a mastery of practice that leads them to rigorous and meaningful international opportunities. Serving on the panel were: Alison Burstein, Curator, The Kitchen (New York); Simone Ciglia, Art Historian, (Eugene, Oregon); Naima J. Keith, Vice President, Education and Public Programs for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Gean Moreno, Director of the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center, ICA Miami; and Blake Shell, Executive and Artistic Director, Oregon Contemporary (Portland, Oregon).

The 2024 recipients were selected based on the following criteria:

  • Quality of work: Artists demonstrate artistic excellence, exemplary talent, and depth of sophisticated exploration.
  • Evolution of work: Artists stand at a pivotal point in their practice and would benefit from a Fellowship at this point in their careers.
  • Impact of work: Artists’ goals are consistent with Fellowship goals, and they show potential for future accomplishment and capacity to contribute significantly to Oregon’s visual arts ecology.

Beyond the fellowship award, Fellows are supported by the foundation as long as they remain living in Oregon through grants to out-of-state venues that organize exhibitions of their work, professional development and consulting opportunities, and other offerings such as print and video documentation of their practice. “The Hallie Ford Fellowship provides invaluable support, enabling me to pursue future opportunities and push the boundaries of my practice.” says recipient Marcus Fischer, “With the financial resources and recognition of the Fellowship, I hope to resonate on a broader scale and continue making an enduring mark on the artistic landscape.”

About the 2024 Hallie Ford Fellows

MARCUS FISCHER

(b. 1977. Lives and works in Eugene, Oregon)

Marcus Fischer

Marcus Fischer. Photo: Sam Gehrke

Marcus Fischer creates, collects, and transforms sound into immersive, layered compositions that accompany performances and exhibitions. Site-specific assemblages of exposed speakers, tape loops, and objects are characteristic of his installations, paired with melodies of restraint and tension. He has released numerous recordings—both solo and collaborative —on 12k, a label that has decisively defined and developed its own concept of minimalism in the realms of experimental and ambient music. He contributed works to the 2019 Whitney Biennial as the sole artist from the Pacific Northwest included in the edition. Fischer has been awarded residencies at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Rauschenberg Residency and at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.
Says the artist: “My work is deeply influenced by the socio-political climate, and I aim to shed light on the experiences of marginalized voices.”

“Marcus’s work addresses ‘scales of place and scales of time’ (my words).” says Stephanie Snyder, Curator and Director of the Douglas. F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, “He examines sound’s relationship to specific built environments, such as homes and public spaces, and specifically places where actions or events take place over specific periods of time. For instance, in a recent sculptural project, Marcus used sound to convey the number of mass shootings in the United States over a one-year period. He is one of few artists in the Pacific Northwest using sound as a medium of social analysis and expression, and I believe his work serves as a sophisticated model for other artists and the public.”​

SAM HAMILTON

(b. 1984. Lives and works in Portland, Oregon)

Sam Hamilton

Sam Hamilton. Photo: Sam Gehrke

Sam Hamilton (Sam Tam Ham), is an independent working-class interdisciplinary artist from Aotearoa (New Zealand) of Pākehā (English settler colonial) descent. Hamilton’s practice today operates more like an ecology than a discipline. Their work has existed in a wide range of contexts including the Converge 45 Biennial and Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR; Whitechapel Gallery London, Transmediale Festival Berlin, the NZ International Film Festival, a research station in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, an active volcanic island crater, a billboard, a functioning Shinto shrine in Japan, an anarchist squat in Athens Greece, and on the radio.
Hamilton’s current focus is Te Moana Meridian, a multi-year project that includes a touring art exhibition, conference series, and full-scale experimental opera, to premiere this year with the Portland Art Museum, PICA, and Boom Arts. Says Hamilton,” Although performance-based, it critically, aesthetically, culturally, and institutionally has little to do with Opera or Theater. Rather it comes from and unequivocally belongs in the Contemporary Art context.” Their work has been recognized by Creative Capital, Oregon Community Foundation’s Creative Heights award, and the New Zealand Art Foundation New Generation Artist Award.

Says PICA Artistic Director Kristan Kennedy: “Sam is a consummate collaborator. I can’t even count the many, many, many artists they have shared expertise, time and labor, creative input and friendship with. They represent the best in this region, and a unifying ‘style’ of Oregon artists which is not necessarily aesthetic, but rather relational, in practice. Their national and global reach along with the respect from regional peers, curators and institutions help bring visibility to this community and signify that Oregon is a home for artists who experiment, invent and comment on broader culture.”

CHARLENE LIU

(b. 1975. Lives and works in Eugene, Oregon)

Charlene Liu

Charlene Liu. Photo: Sam Gehrke

Charlene Liu was born in Taiwan and raised in the American Midwest. Her paintings, prints, and mixed media installations weave together familial histories, cultural tropes, and decorative motifs to explore the malleable conditions of memory, heritage, and identity. Imagery draws freely from nature, food, ephemera, still life paintings, Rococo ornamentation, and East Asian art and design. Liu’s luminous, layered compositions evoke multi-layered realities, fluid states, and imaginative realms through material process, vibrant colors, and playful juxtapositions.
Her work has been exhibited at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, Umatilla, OR; Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR; and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, OR. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York and a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. Liu is a Professor of Art and Printmaking at the University of Oregon.

“I see Liu’s work becoming increasingly thoughtful and personal, reflecting on nostalgia, distances from/longing for homelands, familial relations, and migration stories that shape so many of us.” says Jenny Lin PhD, Director of the MA Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere, University of Southern California, “Simultaneously, Liu’s work has in recent years become more and more relevant by integrating cross-cultural themes and helping to foster intercultural understanding and empathy at a time of rising geopolitical tensions.”

“It has been a rewarding experience to collaborate with curators on my two recent projects.” Says Liu, “I would like to continue building relationships with curators who can help contextualize my art for a diverse, intergenerational audience.”

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Marcus Fischer JPG
Sam Hamilton JPG
Charlene Liu JPG
Photo Credits: Sam Gehrke

About The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program

The Visual Arts Program honors the late Hallie Ford, co-founder of The Ford Family Foundation, who left a legacy based on an interest in and a lifelong support of the visual arts. The Hallie Ford Fellowships are the flagship element of the Visual Arts Program. In addition, the program offers grants to visual artists for unanticipated career opportunities; supports artists-in-residence programs; brings curators and critics from outside the region to Oregon for studio visits and community dialogue; supports exhibitions, catalogues and other forms of documentation; and awards grants for small capital projects.

About The Ford Family Foundation

The Ford Family Foundation was established in 1957 by Kenneth W. and Hallie E. Ford. Its mission is “successful citizens and vital rural communities” in Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. The Foundation is located in Roseburg, Oregon, with a Scholarship office in Eugene. For more information about the Foundation and its Visual Arts Program, visit www.tfff.org.

General media inquiries
Mandy Elder, Learning Officer – Research and Communications
(541) 492-2393, melder@tfff.org

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