NEWS
2024 BBP MICRO-GRANT RECIPIENT: Jazmine Catasús
Black Ball Projects is thrilled to announce that Jazmine Catasús is the recipient of the Black Ball Project 2024 micro-grant. Catasús is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator specializing in object-based art, creating paintings, prints, and sculptures using handmade paper as a core material. Her work explores the intersections of Blackness, spiritual practices, and materiality, delving into the complexities of Black subjectivity and religio-aesthetics within the African Diaspora.
You can view her work now on our website, and stay tuned for the launch of her online viewing room and her artist’s talk later this fall.
2024 Microgrant finalists
Black Ball Projects is proud to introduce you to the six finalists of the fourth annual Black Ball Projects micro-grant: Jazmine Catasus, Jaynie Crimmins, Fay Ku, Yunmee Kyong, Elizabeth Riley, and Claire Sherwood. The genre this year is works on paper, and these six New York based artists are pushing the boundaries of the genre.
The genre this year is works on paper, and these six New York based artists are pushing the boundaries of the genre. After meeting initial eligibility requirements of having a mature practice, being underexposed, and having financial need, artists are then judged upon the strength of their submitted works.
Currently the program is by nomination only, and we are grateful for the guidance of our Nominators: Richard Barlow, Christina Massey, Eun-Ha Paek, Laleh Khorramian, Bethany Czarnecki, Rob Hult.
You can view their work now on our website, and we will announce the recipient shortly.
BLACK BALL PROJECTS IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!
The new Black Ball Projects YouTube channel will feature our grantees and supported artists’ videos, installation, artist talks, studio visits, performances, exhibition tours, behind the scenes, and more. Over the coming months, we’ll be releasing videos weekly, both from our archives as well as new videos made in collaboration with our participating artists, board, and community.
Subscribe to the Black Ball Projects’ YouTube channel to get an inside look into the world of Black Ball Projects and our community of under-exposed contemporary artists who have been working diligently on the periphery of the greater art world.
Interview:
Paul Narkiewicz
Paul Narkiewicz is the recipient of Black Ball Projects’ 2023 Micro-Grant; with a career spanning seven decades. Megan Mi-Ai Lee is an interdisciplinary artist and curator who also works as the Education Manager at Greenwich House. Because of her deep and ongoing relationship with Paul Narkiewicz, she was able to not only facilitate the collection of his archival works to present in this viewing room, but also to interview him — not a small feat, since, as she says, he’s a “man of few words”.
Read the full interview here.
Viewing Room: Paul Narkiewicz
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our latest viewing room featuring 2023 Black Ball Projects micro-grant recipient Paul Narkiewicz.
Over the seven decades of his artistic practice, Paul has developed a distinct visual vocabulary that can be seen as a common thread between the interplay and evolution of the various mediums he works with. In 2010, he began to prolifically make intimately scaled ceramic sculptures, and has begun exhibiting his work again for the first time in decades, with the new works shown alongside his archival paintings and prints.
We are pleased to share a broad overview of his work across his career.
ANNOUNCING OUR 2022 micro-granT RECIPIENt: PAUL NARKIEWICZ
Application Images
Viewing Room (coming soon)
Interview with the Artist (coming soon)
We are thrilled to announce that Paul Narkiewicz is the recipient of the Black Ball Project 2023 micro-grant. It was a hard decision with such strong nominees and finalists. As this year’s recipient, they will receive a cash award of $2000, as well as a viewing room and an artist's talk on our digital platform. You can view a sample of his work now here, and stay tuned for the launch of their online viewing room in February, and an interview with the artist in March.
Paul Narkiewicz was born in 1937 in Easton, PA, and studied painting at the Philadelphia College of Art in the early 1960's. After moving to New York City in 1966, he worked in painting, sculpture, and printmaking, and exhibited his work throughout the 1980’s. In 2010, he began to prolifically make intimately scaled ceramic sculptures, and has begun exhibiting work again, with the new works shown alongside his archival paintings and prints.
Paul maintains that he is a sculptor rather than a ceramicist, and has always had an interdisciplinary practice in which one body of work informs the other. Originally trained as a printmaker, Paul demonstrates a lithographer and etcher’s sensitivity to each of these elements. Each figure informs the next, and en masse they form a crowd that only emphasizes each piece's distinct character.
2023 black ball projects micro-grant: SCULPTURE
We are proud to introduce you to the five finalists of the third annual Black Ball Projects micro-grant: Cammi Climaco, James Huang, Melinda McDaniel, Paul Narkiewicz, and Krista Louise Smith.
The genre this year is sculpture. After meeting initial eligibility requirements of having a mature practice, being underexposed, and having financial need, artists are then judged upon the strength of their submitted works. The recipient will receive the full micro-grant award of $2000, as well as a viewing room and an artist's talk on Black Ball Project's digital platform. Each of the additional finalists will receive a $250 stipend for the labor applied towards completing the application process.
You can view their work now here, as well as meet our nominators and judges, and we will announce the winner shortly.
ANNOUNCING OUR 2022 micro-granT RECIPIENt: Mashell Black
Mashell Black, “Playground”, 104 x 138 inches, Oil on canvas, 2021
2022 black ball projects micro-grant: PAINTING
This is our second year running the micro-grant program. This year we decided to move forward with a rotating genre format; the genre for 2022 is: "Painting in the Expanded Field". Our criteria is determined by three factors: having a mature art practice, being an under-exposed artist and being in financial need.
2021 black ball projects inaugural micro-grant
We are thrilled to introduce our new micro-grant program. Currently the program is by nomination only, and we are grateful for the guidance of our nominators and judges. After meeting initial eligibility requirements of having a mature practice, being underexposed, and having financial need, artists are then judged upon the strength of their submitted works. All finalists receive a $250 stipend for the labor applied towards completing the application process. The micro-grant program is funded entirely by your generous donations to Black Ball Projects. The micro-grant recipient will receive the full award of $2000, as well as a viewing room and an artist's talk on Black Ball Project's digital platform.
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