Art Professor Wins Pollock-Krasner Award
Shiva Ahmadi, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Art and Art History, has received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.
Ahmadi, who came to UC Davis last year, is one of about 100 artists worldwide who received the award. The $20,000 award can be used for specific projects and general support.
The artist’s paintings are inspired by delicate, jewel-like Persian miniatures depicting religious, mythological or royal court scenes, but address issues of war and repression. Read more about her work.
The award will help support the creation of a new body of work that will include ceramic sculptures as well as paintings.
“Creating artwork can be very expensive with all the materials, framing, shipping and so on,” she said. “An award like this provides the support that allows artists to take on new and ambitious projects.”
A native of Iran, Ahmadi’s art is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
The foundation provides grants to individual artists of about $2 million each year. It is named for the artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. Pollock-Krasner grants have enabled artists to create new work, purchase materials and pay for studios as well as personal and medical expenses.
— Jeffrey Day, content strategist in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science