The Boston Foundation has named 10 local artists as 2015 Brother Thomas Fellows, providing each with $15,000 in recognition of their work. This year’s round of the biennial fellowships, which are funded through the Brother Thomas Fund, brings the total number of Brother Thomas Fellows to 30.
The cash awards, which are not tied to any particular project, are designed for mid-career artists and are meant to honor the life of Brother Thomas Bezanson, a Benedictine monk and ceramist whose work can be found in scores of museums nationwide.
“The fact that we are awarding our thirtieth fellowship from the Brother Thomas Fund speaks to both the legacy of Brother Thomas and the positive long-term impact that arts and culture can have on community development and unification,” Paul S. Grogan, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation, said in a prepared statement.
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The 2015 fellows, all from Greater Boston, work in diverse areas of the arts and include filmmakers, sound artists, ceramists, and poets.
Raúl Gonzalez III, a visual artist inspired by the immigrant experience, creates cartoonish, often violent images filled with devils, dead roosters, cacti, and severed heads.
Masako Kamiya, a painter, creates her work dab by dab, building dots of paint into patterns of three-dimensional, multicolored stalactites that protrude from the painting’s surface.
Musician Balla Kouyaté, originally from Mali, performs on a traditional instrument known as a balafon, which is similar to a xylophone.
Nicole Aquillano, a ceramist, creates functional pottery inspired by architecture, and Danielle Legros Georges, a professor at Lesley University, is Boston’s current poet laureate.
Other fellows include visual artist Napoleon Jones-Henderson, writer Michelle Seaton, filmmaker Jae Williams, musician Halsey Burgund, and performance artist Sandrine Schaefer.
Malcolm Gay can be reached
at malcolm.gay@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @malcolmgay.