10 undergraduate students were chosen to receive the 2018 Kimberly D. Iles Art Award.
Students were recognized for their various artistic works by professors’ nominations. The awards were announced on Tuesday during the Iles Awards ceremony. Each student provided a presentation of their art, and afterwards, James J. Hack, husband of the late Kimberly D. Iles, presented them with their awards.
Iles graduated from UT with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and was known for her passion for the arts. She provided works for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the White House Tech Corps and eventually started her own business.
After receiving news that she had a terminal illness, Iles and her husband decided to provide a large endowment to the university to impact the lives of students through the form of scholarships after she would be no longer be able to help the university herself.
One of the scholarship recipients Olivia Lichterman, self-coined as a time-based artist and a senior studying 4-D studio art and history, works with both 2-D art, such as drawings, and 4-D art that takes place over the course of a time period, including video, sound and performance.
“I’m really drawn to sound art. Sound has agency in a space and creates an environment,” Lichterman said. “My work is an expression of how I’m experiencing the world. Through my work, I want people to step into my experience. Art bridges gaps like that and connects people.”
Lichterman said she draws her inspirations from works of the past and environments she has traveled in.
“I find that new environments are really conducive to a creative practice. I love to travel. I went to New York last December and saw a lot of really great work,” Lichterman said.
Lichterman said the Iles Award and scholarship is an incredible honor that signifies her work is being noticed.
“It gives me a lot of confidence to know that other people have confidence in my work. The faculty at UTK is amazing, and I think that I owe much of my success to their influence. For them to nominate me for this award is amazing, and I am truly thankful,” Lichterman said.
Like Lichterman, Tatiana Tikhonova, senior studying studio art with an emphasis in printmaking and drawing and minoring in art history, sees the scholarship as a sign her work is being seen. Tikonova is a printmaker who creates intaglio, relief and lithography. She also makes books, cards and animations with her printmaking skills.
“I share my feelings, emotions, personal experiences and dreams. My latest work is based on my Russian heritage. I am asked lots of questions everyday and I use my prints to answer some of them,” Tikhonova said.
Tikhonova said that she wants her viewers to interpret her artwork in their own way.
“Sometimes the subject matter is simple and obvious; sometimes it is humorous, satiric and the message is hidden. I want the viewer to have a reaction to my work and spend time looking and observing what they see,” Tikhonova said.
Another Iles scholarship recipient winner, Kelly Moore, is a senior seeking to receive a Bachelors of Fine Arts through concentrations in painting, drawing and ceramics.
Moore said that being half Chinese but not understanding or knowing her culture and language led her to exploring her emotions regarding her heritage in her art.
“My art stems from this frustration and ignorance. In order to connect with my heritage, I make physical manifestations of my thoughts and feelings through the explorative use of Eastern and Western traditional materials and subject matter,” Moore said.
“America has always been described as a melting pot of cultures and being biracial, I think my voice is representative of this constantly changing and unique country,” Moore added. “With my art, I hope people can see this and recognize how wonderful and diverse America is. Without creativity, nothing would be as it is now since even without art, creativity is used in technology and society as a whole. (Creativity) is essential to what makes us human and develops and evolves into culture.”
Recipient Robert Jenkins, senior studying graphic design, is a digital designer and theater artist and also delves into other mediums of art such as video, photography and illustration. Jenkins said he hopes viewers can reflect on themselves through his art and develop an interpersonal and intrapersonal dialogue.
“I love when viewers say that my work made them discover something new about themselves or that it made them see things in a different way that I had never gleaned from my own work. In a sense, that is the art. My work was just the catalyst, paint for the canvas,” Jenkins said.
As this is the second time Jenkins has received the financial award, Jenkins said the award and scholarship means others are appreciating his work.
“I’m so grateful that others are recognizing my work and the value that it possess. It’s not just me. It’s not just some vain hope that I have for myself. My work is valuable, and it’s making a difference,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s important for the reason that a queer, closeted little boy that was once so afraid to truly be himself is now the man giving this interview for an award he had been blessed to receive twice.”
