Miami, Nov. 18, 2016 – Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Museum of Art + Design (MOA+D) and the CINTAS Foundation have announced Vanessa Diaz is the winner of the 2016-17 CINTAS Knight Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts. The $15,000 prize was presented by Hortensia Sampedro, President of the CINTAS Foundation, along with Kristopher LeCorgne of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Rafael Miyar, chair of the CINTAS Foundation Visual Arts Committee.
“Since 1963 the CINTAS Foundation has supported Cuban arts outside Cuba. Over 300 CINTAS Fellows have contributed nationally and internationally to the humanities,” said Sampedro. “CINTAS Fellows are found represented in all major museums, and important private and corporate collections, as well as recipients of Pulitzer, Guggenheim, NEA, Obie Awards, exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Rockefeller and Fulbright Residencies, Latin Grammy nominations and many, many more too numerous to list.”
Díaz earned her MFA from the University of South Florida. She was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, and a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship in 2014. She was one of ten artists invited to exhibit in the premier Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art. Her work has been exhibited at Project Row Houses in Houston, TX, the Museum of Fine Art in St. Petersburg, FL, the Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa and the ArtsUp! Gallery space in Ft. Lauderdale. Díaz has received several fellowships for residency, including The Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans), BAU Institute Camargo Foundation (France), The Oberpflazer Schwandorf Kunstlerhaus (Germany), The Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), the Wassaic Projects (NY), and recently the Windgate Visiting artist in Residence Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Past Visual Arts Fellows include Coco Fusco, Carmen Herrera, Guillermo Calzadilla, Félix González-Torres, Carlos Alfonzo, Teresita Fernández, Anthony Goicolea, Jillian Mayer, Ernesto Oroza, Andres Serrano and Maria Martínez-Cañas, and Maria Elena González.
About the CINTAS Fellowship Program
The CINTAS Fellowship Program encourages creative development in architecture, literature, music composition and the visual arts. The Foundation was established with funds from the estate of Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), former Cuban ambassador to the United States, a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. In June 2011, the CINTAS Foundation entered into an extended loan to MDC’s Museum of Art + Design of the CINTAS Fellows Collection. It is comprised of nearly 300 pieces by artists of Cuban descent living outside Cuba who have received prestigious CINTAS Fellowships, awarded since 1963. www.cintasfoundation.org.
About MDC Museum of Art and Design
MDC Museum of Art and Design is dedicated to the presentation of visual art and design exhibitions. Housed at the National Historic Landmark Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College in downtown Miami, its mission is to promote the appreciation and understanding of art through direct engagement with original works.
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For more information about the CINTAS program at MDC Museum of Art + Design, please contact Laurie Escobar, CINTAS Administrator, 305-237-7901, lescobar@mdc.edu.
MDC’s Museum of Art + Design media contact: Carolina Salazar, 305-237-7710, csalaza4@mdc.edu