Recent MFA and Dodd Alumna Lauren O’Connor-Korb (2019) has been awarded the Judge’s Prize for her sculpture “The Soloist” in the exhibition “B20:Wiregrass Biennial”. O’Connor-Korb received one award of six among other artists featured in the virtual exhibition of The Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama. 

The Judge’s Prize, awarded to the artist the judge selects as the best overall work in the show, was chosen by Jackie Clay, executive director of the Coleman Center for the Arts, a contemporary art space in York, Alabama. Clay chose the winners from a field of 39 artists representing 11 southeastern states.  

“'B20: Wiregrass Biennial' marks the gathering of really exceptional work during uncommon times. Work that was likely created, completed, or submitted preceding our current uncertainty, uprising, and coming together. And just as our commitments to vacation or belief in systems have shifted, reshaped and shifted again, the works of Jasper Lee and Lauren O'Connor-Korb – beautifully executed and complex in meaning – can also be read as particularly resonate in our mutable now,” said Clay. 

“'The Soloist' was my way of thinking about what it means to be human in a world that seems to be getting increasingly inhuman or perhaps just inhumane. It's a sentiment I have been reflecting on quite a bit in the last six months as I try to reconcile what it means to be an artist and educator in 2020. The WMA's support of the arts and artists feels especially meaningful in this moment, and I feel incredibly humbled to receive the Judge's prize and have my work be featured alongside so many other talented Southern artists,” said O’Connor-Korb. 

Image: ​The Soloist, Trumpet, oak, microcontroller, components, Image by Robert Toles