Sharing Talents: 2020 Betty Bowen Winning Artist Talk

Learn about the three Northwest artists selected as part of this year’s Betty Bowen Award. Dawn Cerny, Elijah Hasan, and Tariqa Waters were all selected as recipients of this annual SAM award. The annual Betty Bowen Award honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work. Dawn Cerny, the 2020 winner, is awarded an unrestricted cash prize of $15,000, and a selection of works will be exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum in the spring of 2021. In addition, Elijah Hasan, and Tariqa Waters, this year’s two Special Recognition Award winners, receive $2,500 to further their artistic practice. Hear from Hasan and Waters as they share insight and perspective into their work and practice followed by an audience Q&A.

2020 Betty Bowen Award Winner Dawn Cerny’s sculptures explore the idea of “home” as both a concept and a place, and as an arena rich for investigation. Her recent body of work examines ideas of furniture and mothers as metaphors: figures that secure value for their potential to hold, display, or be absentmindedly left with things. This pattern of holding as the creation of intimacy and belonging, pleasure, and self-preservation plays out repeatedly in her work.

Special Recognition Award Winner Elijah Hasan is a writer, filmmaker, and director. His projects lay bare the realities of systemic racism, social justice, and activism, exploring subjects such as the experiences of Black police officers in the Portland police department and the parallels between Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War and contemporary members of Antifa. He centers the stories of Black communities as they navigate these realities, all while on a personal journey of artistic and spiritual growth.

Kayla Skinner Special Recognition Award Winner Tariqa Waters’ whimsical, Pop-inspired work references childhood memories where vanity and self-preservation collide to mask systemic and generational pain. Her work examines ideas of femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and inclusion. Using photography, videography, and sculptural fabrication, Waters attempts to create innovative ways to distort reality to the point where marginalization is impossible.