Six members of the SVA community have been selected as 2014 Josh Simon Guggenheim Fellows in the Creative Arts. 
Often characterized as “midcareer” awards, Guggenheim Fellowships are unrestricted grants awarded annually to men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for dynamic scholarship or creative ability. The program is intended to provide Fellows with the time and financial resources to pursue scholarly and creative projects.
MFA Art Criticism and Writing faculty member Susan Bee’s oil paintings, though almost psychedelic in their color schemes, are based on black and white film stills. Bee uses color and composition to accentuate the emotive tension in the stills. She is also a writer and a coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online.
Mark Kendall (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) has two documentaries under his belt, The Time Machine (2010) and La Camioneta (2012), and with them, multiple awards and honors. He will utilize his Guggenheim fellowship to develop his next project, which explores the relationship between time, craft and landscape in a small town in Sweden’s Arctic Circle.
MFA Photography, Video and Related Media faculty member Andrew Moore’s large scale photographs depict scenes from places such as Cuba, Russia, Times Square and Detroit, capturing the atmosphere of particular landscapes. Moore’s newest project, Dirt Meridian, focuses on the sparsely populated landscape of the Great Plains states running along the hundredth meridian.
Matthew Pillsbury’s (MFA 2004 Photo, Video and Related Media) striking long-exposure black and white photographs address the ways technology impacts everyday life.
BFA Fine Arts, BFA Illustration and MFA Illustration as Visual Essay faculty member David Sandlin will pursue new works that deal with American folklore and depictions of heroes and villains in American cultural history.
Rachel Sussman’s (BFA 1998 Photography) recent project, The Oldest Living Things in the World, about which she recently participated in a conversation and book signing at SVA, chronicles her journey around the world to document organisms that have been alive for more than 2000 years. Sussman’s work straddles the line between art and science, inviting curiosity and contemplation of the living world, time and the global environment.
To view the entire list of 2014 Guggenheim Fellows and for more information, visit gf.org/fellows.