After careful deliberation, the Norman Arts Council proudly announces the selection of five local artists as winners of the Individual Artist Awards. Lindsey Allgood, Craig Swan, Michael Joy Wilson, Jessi Wilson and Barbara Ryan will each receive a $600 honorarium and a featured exhibit in The Library Gallery at MAINSITE Contemporary Art. Each opening will coincide with a MAINSITE opening on a 2nd Friday. Exhibits will start in December with Allgood and continue approximately every other month through October 2013.

One high school student will also be selected for the award. High school students have until January 14, 2013 to submit their application for the Individual Artist Award. Students must live in Norman, but may attend high school in another community.

Amber Sharples, Assistant Director of Oklahoma Arts Council, juried the submissions and selected the five winning artists, each with a distinct style and approach to art. As the curator of the program, she will work with the artists in developing and installing their exhibits.

Lindsey Allgood is an interdisciplinary performance artist working primarily in live performance and video. She explores the body’s potential as both medium and site, utilizing materials like milk, eggs, skin, blood and hair to investigate that potential. Allgood’s exhibit in December will study the idea of synesthesia — the connection of the five senses — through an interactive experiment that will call those in the audience to participate in her art.

Craig Swan, who comes to Norman by way of Boston, says his work “has always been the product of tempering sweat-drenched aggression into something beautiful.” Opening in February, his show will combine street-art styled images, woodcarving and paint into final works that reside somewhere between figuration and abstraction.

Michael Joy Wilson combines printmaking with other artistic processes in her June show. Her pieces explore the overlap between complex and subtle relationships between objects and ideas, with this exhibit specifically centered on palindromes themed around Norman and the sense of community here.

Jessi Wilson exploits the Americana car culture as a central subject to her work as a photographer. Using a unique photographic transfer technique she developed, Jessi brings out the essence of the cars she documents by printing the images on textures like wood or aluminum. Her exhibit opens in August.

Barbara Ryan will close out the 2012-2013 Individual Artist Award exhibits with a show inspired by the ideas deception and irony. Opening in October, Ryan explores how fun becomes a mask for violence or how sugar becomes a veil for decadence through bright, colorful mixed media pieces.

For more information about the artists please contact the Norman Arts Council at nac@normanarts.org or 405-360-1162.