Daniel Minter wins 2021 Joyce Foundation Award
Daniel Minter, painter and assemblage artist, will create a work with Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee. One of four artists selected to develop impactful collaborations with organizations spanning the visual, performing, and multidisciplinary arts that engage diverse communities in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee.
This year, the Joyce Awards feature projects taking a creative and compelling look at the timely themes of loss and renewal, identity and cultural sustainability, and healing through nature, art, and community. Additionally, the award involves a multi-faceted community engagement project that draws from traditions of the African Diaspora and explores nature, ecological threats, and the healing power of art.
"In the Healing Language of Trees" brings artist Daniel Minter to Lynden Sculpture Garden for two three-week summer residencies, culminating in a public outdoor installation and symposia. Invoking axé, the “spiritual force that resides in all living things,” Minter will work in direct collaboration with artists, refugees, and local Black communities in realizing his vision of an ash borer-ravaged tree transformed as a spire, representing the healing power contained within all beings. Branches of this tree will be removed, hand carved into beads and symbolic objects, and will adorn the trunk. The resulting work will become part of Lynden’s permanent collection.
“My work for this project is to transform a ravaged trunk into a sculptural beacon for community healing—providing a physical manifestation of both collective loss and renewal,” said Minter. “This metamorphosis is activated by the artist and community collaborators who each, in their engagements with the tree, become interpreters of loss and instigators of change.” - Daniel Minter
Past winners of the award include Bill T. Jones, Kaneza Schaal, Nick Cave, Theaster Gates, Seitu Jones, Julie Mehretu, Kyle Abraham, Aparna Ramaswamy, Rosy Simas, Nari Ward, Sanford Biggers, and Camille A. Brown.