JMU Graduate Student Artist Wins VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship
School of Art Design and Art History
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has selected Anikó Sáfrán (M.F.A. ’22), a graduate student at James Madison University’s School of Art, Design and Art History, to receive a $6,000 Visual Arts Fellowship.
Sáfrán is one of 26 student and professional artists chosen from more than 500 applicants. VMFA uses a juried, merit-based competition to award fellowships in the largest program of its kind in the United States.
Sáfrán works in drawing, painting, performance, photography. She submitted eight photographs that use various processes that involve found objects and transparencies floating in water, images built through a layering process on a light box, and sculpted landscapes through a fun house mirror.
“My work is about perception and distortion,” says Sáfrán. “My images are beautiful and sometimes grotesque, to not only represent the allure of mental and cultural fabrications, but also to capture the conflict that arises from the negative impacts of their existence. I want people to ask themselves, ‘What is reality? What do I perceive? How do my ideas reflect the way I see the world?’”
With the funds, Sáfrán hopes to purchase speakers for exhibitions, a still-life shooting table, and framing equipment.
Sáfrán is working on her M.F.A in studio arts, graduating in 2022.
