Painter Terry Ekasala of West Burke has been selected as the second recipient of The Vermont Prize, an annual award aimed at celebrating and supporting the best visual art being made in Vermont today.
A collaborative initiative of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Burlington City Arts, The Current and the Hall Art Foundation, The Vermont Prize is juried by one representative from each of the four partner organizations and one special guest juror. Winners receive a $5,000 cash prize and have their work showcased and archived at vermontprize.org and on social media.
Ekasala was born and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and studied at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Her work has been exhibited at numerous institutions around the world.
Ekasala has explained how her materials and process inform the play between abstraction and representation in her artwork.
“My paintings are never thought up in advance,” she said. “This has brought much more to my practice. I feel less restraint, freer to experiment, always looking for new approaches to bring an image out. For years I worked, for the most part, abstract until this introduction of acrylic and paper. Suddenly and surprisingly figures or figurative images began to appear!”