Tito’s Prize
2023 Awardee
Rodell Warner
Tito’s Handmade Vodka, in partnership with Big Medium are thrilled to announce Rodell Warner as the sixth awardee of the Tito's Prize.
Funded by a generous gift from Tito’s Handmade Vodka and facilitated by Big Medium, Warner will receive an unrestricted award of $15,000 and a solo exhibition at the Big Medium Gallery in the spring of 2024.
The Curatorial Panel included Erika Mei Chua Holum (she/they), Cynthia Woods Mitchell Assistant Curator at the Blaffer Art Museum; Phillip Townsend, the Curator of Art at Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin; and Coka Treviño, Curator and Director of Programming at Big Medium. The three-member panel unanimously selected the prize-winning artist.
“Immediately for me the Tito’s Prize means that I’m able to focus on projects that I would otherwise not be able to devote enough time to. My 3D-modeling work is particularly labor-intensive because I don’t typically use any scanning tools. Instead, I manually build my models by drawing in virtual 3D space. I prefer the intimacy and control of this method compared to more automated methods. Sculpting a face and head could take me weeks. This kind of work doesn’t usually generate income for me in the short-term so, often, projects involving 3D-modeling (which include some of my most important work) have to take a back seat to projects that more quickly generate income. Having time to experiment and to refine new methods and directions is expansive for my practice and is extremely valuable in the long term. Having the support of the Tito’s Prize affords me the time to do this kind of work.
From a social standpoint this prize represents a major shift for my career since moving to Austin. I’ve been in the city for four years now but all of my solo shows and major projects have been overseas. The Tito’s Prize exhibition at Big Medium is my opportunity to do something special locally and to share it face-to-face with art lovers in Austin. I’m excited to meet everyone in person. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
Rodell Warner (b. 1986) is a Trinidadian artist working primarily in new media and photography. His works have been exhibited at The Art Gallery of Ontario in Fragments of Epic Memory in 2021, at The Whitney Museum of American Art in the 2016 Dreamlands exhibition as part of the collective video project Ways of Something, and at The National Gallery of Jamaica in the 2016 exhibition Digital. Rodell is a recipient of the 2011 Commonwealth Connections International Arts Residency, the 2014 summer residency at NLS Kingston, and, recently, The World Reimagined Residency and commission in England and Scotland in 2022. Rodell lives and works between Port of Spain in Trinidad, Kingston in Jamaica, and Austin, Texas, in the US.
rodellwarner.com
2023 Curators
Erika Mei Chua Holum (she/they) is the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Assistant Curator at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. Her curatorial work and research focus on intimacies and interconnected (hi)stories revealed through artistic practices, south-south relationships, ways of gathering, and archival methods following forms of historical displacements. She has contributed to projects and exhibitions worldwide, such as makibaka! Fifty Years of Filipino-American Youth Activism at Alief Art House (2021), Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2020), the Second Edition of the Lagos Biennial in Nigeria (2019), and Obscura Festival of Photography in Malaysia (2018). She has previously held positions at the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago Public Libraries, Fulbright Malaysia, European Cultural Academy, and 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust. Erika holds an MA in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and is completing a Masters in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2023.
Phillip Townsend is the Curator of Art at Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art + Art History specializing in modern and contemporary art of the African Diaspora, focusing on the politics of identity and representational strategies of BIPOC artists. He received his M.A. in Art History from UT-Austin (2016) and his B.A. in Art History from The University of South Florida (2014).
As a founding member of the Austin-based curatorial collective, Neon Queen Collective, Phillip co-curated Notes on Sugar: The Work of María Magdalena Campos–Pons (2018) at the Christian Green Gallery and Like the Lonely Traveler: Video Works by María Magdalena Campos–Pons (2018) at the Visual Arts Center. Phillip also co-curated Charles White: Celebrating the Gordon Gift (2019), an exhibition presented by the Blanton Museum in partnership with African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS) and the Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin. He contributed several essays for the exhibition catalogue, Charles White: Celebrating the Gordon Gift. At AGBS, he recently curated Wura-Natasha Ogunji: earth, body, spirit and Melvin Edwards: WIRE(D) + CHAIN(ED), a major exhibition of work by Melvin Edwards, a Houston native and pioneer in the history of African American art and sculpture.
Coka Treviño was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, and currently resides in Austin, Texas. She started working at the Museum of Contemporary Arts of Monterrey supporting the Exhibitions department, in 2004; since then, Treviño has worked for art galleries, museums, and universities and has held every position imaginable in the industry, both in Monterrey and Austin, curating being her main focus. In 2009 she founded The Projecto looking to facilitate cultural exchange with different cities and artistic expressions, hosting international artists and collaborating with different local institutions to enable dialog and community enrichment. Currently, she’s working as an independent curator for The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s annual Momentum exhibition and as the Curator and Director of Programming at Big Medium.
About Tito’s Prize
The Tito’s Prize is a $15,000 award for one Austin-based artist, courtesy of a generous donation from Tito’s Handmade Vodka, the Austin-based spirits company, and facilitated by Big Medium. The award includes a solo exhibition in the Big Medium Gallery.
This annual opportunity is available to artists within a 17-mile radius of Austin. Artists working in any artistic media and stage in their career are eligible.
Previous Tito’s Prize Recipients
About Tito's Handmade Vodka
Tito’s Handmade Vodka was founded by a sixth-generation Texan, Bert “Tito” Beveridge. In the mid-nineties, on a plot of land in rural Austin, he built a 998 square foot shack, rigged a pot still with spare parts, and created Tito’s Handmade Vodka. Tito’s corn-based vodka is certified gluten-free. Tito’s Handmade Vodka is distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation, Inc. in Austin, Texas, and is available in Liter, 1.75L, 750ml, 375ml, 200ml, and 50ml sizes.
For more information, visit titosvodka.com.