Project Grants for Tennessee Artists

Brittney Boyd Bullock is a visual artist living and working in Memphis, TN. As an artist working in fiber, mixed media, and abstraction, her practice explores the power and connection felt when we slow down to reimagine and reframe the observable world. Outside of her studio practice, she is a non-profit arts consultant and educator. Boyd Bullock has worked as Project Manager for the Urban Art Commission, managing Memphis's largest public art archive, and as the Partnerships and Community Engagement Manager for Crosstown Concourse & Crosstown Arts, overseeing various collaborative creative programs and exhibitions. As the former director of youth programs for the Memphis Music Initiative, she developed an award-winning program for black and brown youth where she cultivated relationships with young people and arts organizations to build spaces for youth that inspire and invite joy, truth-telling, and anti-adultist practices. She’s been awarded grants and fellowships for her work as an artist working in communities, including the Americans for the Arts Public Art Scholarship and Robert E. Gard Award, The Kresge Foundation, and the Assisi Foundation. Awarded artist residencies/ grants include Crosstown Arts, Carrell Artist in Residence, New Public Artist Fellowship, and Current Art Fund grant from Tri-Star Arts.

Karlota Contreras-Koterbay is an Appalachian-based Filipinx curator, artist and arts administrator. She is Director of the ETSU Tipton & Slocumb Galleries under the Department of Art & Design at East Tennessee State University where she develops diverse, innovative and collaborative exhibitions and educational programs that serve the Appalachian Highland region. Contreras- Koterbay has juried exhibitions and grants in Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas. She is recipient of numerous grants from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Project; Arts Fund and Hope in Action from East Tennessee Foundation, Arts Project Support and Arts Build Communities from Tennessee Arts Commission; and In These Mountains from South Arts. Karlota Contreras-Koterbay received her Master of Art (MA) in Art History and Bachelor of Art (BA) in Anthropology with honors from the University of the Philippines - Diliman. She is a member of the International Association of Aesthetics, International Council on Museums, Southeastern College Art Conference, and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries. She has served as Board Member for the Art Association of the Philippines, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts; and Board Director for the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance (MSA). She is a member of the IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art and International Council of Museums.

Sarah Martin is an educator, photographer, and writer currently serving as public art project manager in Durham, North Carolina. Sarah earned her BA in Media Art from the University of Tennessee and her MFA in Photography from Yale University. Sarah has taught at Yale University and the University of Tennessee, created a photography major at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, served as an Artist in Residence at Lyon College, and chaired the art department at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Sarah exhibits her photography and video art internationally.

John Riepenhoff was born in 1982 in Milwaukee, WI where he lives and works. He earned a BFA from the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, founding The Green Gallery while still a student there. His artistic practice and roles curating and directing projects were intertwined from the beginning, each role informing the others. Riepenhoff is currently the Executive Director of Sculpture Milwaukee, runs The Open Fund and the Beer Endowment to create revenue streams for artist-run projects. He co-founded the Milwaukee International and Dark Fairs, advises collections, and is an inventor of artistic platforms for the expression of others.  He is curator of this year’s Sculpture Milwaukee exhibition Actual Fractals, Act II. His exhibitions and curatorial projects have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, Arkansas; Poor Farm, Wisconsin; Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee; Inova, Milwaukee; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; and John Michael Kohler Art Preserve, Sheboygan, Wisconsin among others. He was the 2015 Milwaukee Arts Board Artist of the Year and is a frequent collaborator on food and design projects.