Teresa Baker Named Recipient of Spring 2020 Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists

New York, NY— December 11, 2019 — Ucross, a prestigious artists’ residency program and creative lab for the arts located in Wyoming’s majestic High Plains, today announced that Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), an artist known for her minimalist, formalist works, has been awarded the fifth Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists. The award includes a one-month residency at Ucross, a stipend of $2,000, and inclusion in a forthcoming exhibition at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery. Baker follows multi-disciplinary artist Heidi K. Brandow, multimedia artist Luzene Hill, mixed-media artist Brenda Mallory, and interdisciplinary artist Sydney Pursel in receiving this honor.

Baker has made a practice of working with unconventional materials - using large swaths of felt, mesh and even AstroTurf as a ground for works that explore color, texture, and space. Baker’s sense of space is indelibly informed by her time spent growing up on the Northern Plains where she spent hours exploring, working and developing ideas. In 2019, she began incorporating traditional, Indigenous materials like buffalo hide, buffalo sinew, beads and willow, merging them with synthetic materials. All of these materials are taken out of rather specific contexts and embedded in a new terrain to create a visceral set of relationships.

Baker received the Tournesol Award from Headlands Center for the Arts in 2013 and was an Artist-In-Residence at The MacDowell Colony in 2015. Her work has been exhibited at The Art Museum of Southeast Texas (Beaumont), Gray Contemporary (Houston), Interface Gallery (Oakland), Public Address Gallery (NYC), Luggage Store Gallery, Kiria Koula, YBCA, Et Al, (San Francisco), among others. In 2018, her visual essay, Sego Lily, was published by Open Space (SFMOMA).

Teresa said of the award, “I am incredibly honored and excited to join Ucross as the spring 2020 Native American Fellow. As someone who spent time growing up on the Northern Plains, I am grateful to Ucross for providing me with the gift of time and space to create in such a beautiful setting. This is an unparalleled opportunity for me to further enhance my art. ”

“We are delighted that Teresa will come to Ucross for a residency next spring,” said Ucross President Sharon Dynak. “Through this gift of uninterrupted time and other support, we are honored to recognize her creative efforts and to help further the development of her exciting work. Teresa will be a great addition to Ucross’s Fellowship initiative that celebrates contemporary Native American artists.”

Initiated in 2017, the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists supports the work of contemporary Native American artists at all stages of their professional careers. It is open to disciplines that include, but are not limited to, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, video, performance art, installation, ceramics, and projects involving multiple disciplines. Two Fellowships are awarded annually, one each in spring and fall.

The application deadline for the fall 2020 fellowship is March 1, 2020. The fellowship is being funded in part by The National Endowment for the Arts. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts funded the fellowship for the first two years.

About Ucross

Located in northeast Wyoming in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, Ucross fosters the creative spirit of deeply committed artists and groups by providing uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodations, and the experience of the majestic High Plains, while serving as a responsible steward of its 20,000-acre ranch. Residencies are awarded to nearly one hundred artists each year. Ten artists are in residence at one time, typically a mix of four visual artists, four writers, and two composers and performers.

Since its establishment in 1981, Ucross has provided more than 2,100 residencies to writers, visual artists, and composers, including such distinguished fellows as Annie Proulx, Terry Tempest Williams, Colson Whitehead, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Ricky Ian Gordon, Bill Morrison, Theaster Gates, Anthony Hernandez, Academy Award and Tony winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez, recent Emmy Award winner Billy Porter, and current United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. National partners of Ucross include the Sundance Institute, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, the Alliance of Artist Communities, the Alley Theatre, and the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. The Ucross Foundation Art Gallery is a significant cultural resource for surrounding communities and beyond. For further information, visit ucross.org.