With an artistic style full of color and positive energy, Joan Fabian, graphic artist and former art instructor at San Antonio College, recently received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc.
grant for an undisclosed amount to support her living and working expenses for one year.
Fabian¹s art is described as playful forms that are lively and resilient to change. It transcends contemporary art clichés to include social issues of media influences and psychological hierarchies, and encourages the viewer to use personal experience for image interpretation. Critics write that she mixes a variety of influences into her simple, exotically patterned, cartoonish figures. Samples can be seen at www.joanfabian.com.
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, established in 1985 through the generosity of Lee Krasner, a leading abstract expressionist painter and widow of Jackson Pollock, grants awards internationally to professional visual artists, based on artistic merit and financial need. Pollock was one of the artists responsible for the Abstract Expressionism movement in America.
³A grant from the well-known Pollock-Krasner Foundation is a very important award for artists who have been actively working in the art field for many years,² said Fabian. ³It frees you to focus on your work instead of worrying about all the expenses that go into making art.²
Citing the example of Pollock spending hours painting in a barn that had no heat, Fabian can relate to the struggles he and his wife encountered before he became recognized. For the past 20 years, Fabian has been making art non-stop and working full-time, even while undergoing chemotherapy treatments for Non-Hodgkin¹s Lymphoma in 1998-2000. It was the artwork, she says, that kept her alive and centered on the positive. While her initial applications to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation were turned down in 1985 and in 1990, she kept the belief that some day her dedication and persistence would pay off.
³In addition to the generous grant award, the exhibitions I have planned are testimony to the fact that after two decades of hard work, my paintings and projects are becoming popular with the public,² Fabian said.
Fabian¹s upcoming exhibitions include: a solo exhibition at ARC Gallery in Chicago in July and another in Atlanta, Georgia at Romo Gallery in March 2006. She was also selected to partake in the Florence Biennale that opens this summer in Italy.
An employee with the Alamo Community College District for 10 years, seven of those spent at SAC, Fabian has received a number of awards over the course of her career, including:
2004 Awards: Austin Fairchild Art Foundation, Travel Grant to the Netherlands, and Artpace Honorarium for public art.
2003 Awards: Southwest School of Art and Craft Honorarium, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum Honorarium, and Internationalizing the Curriculum Grant, San Antonio College.
2002 Awards: Puffin Foundation, Ltd. Artist Grant; Texas Commission on the Arts, Travel Grant.
2000 Award: CIES Fulbright Scholar Award to Pakistan.
1995 Award: Hattie M. Strong Foundation Scholar.
1995/1998 Award: Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Honorarium
1991 Award: Visual Artist Grant, City of Chicago
Fabian earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1995); and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Il. (1985).
Pollock-Krasner grants have enabled artists to create new work, purchase needed materials and pay for studio rent, as well as personal and medical expenses. Past recipients of Pollock-Krasner grants acknowledge their impact in allowing concentrated time for studio work, and in preparing for exhibitions and other professional opportunities, which have advanced their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than $38 million to artists in 65 countries. Painters, sculptors, printmakers and artists who work on paper are eligible to apply. Visit www.pkf.org for more information.
