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Tony Gum Awarded the 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

 

Tony Gum, Christopher Moller Gallery, Booth S-105. Courtesy of BFA.com / Charles RousselTony Gum, Christopher Moller Gallery, Booth S-105. Courtesy of BFA.com / Charles Roussel

 

Pulse Contemporary Art Fair has announced that Tony Gum has received the 2017 Miami Beach PULSE Prize, a jury-awarded, cash grant of $2,500 given directly to an artist of distinction, exhibiting in a SOLO booth at the fair.

For the thirteenth edition of PULSE Miami Beach, led by the fair’s new director, Katelijne De Backer, (previously The Armory Show, Art Miami, Aqua Art Miami, and Lehmann Maupin), Tony Gum was selected by a jury of expert curators that lead a strong force within the art world and beyond, including Lolita Cros, Independent Curator; Kathryn Mikesell, Founder of the Fountainhead Residency; Tommy Ralph Pace, Associate Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Roya Sachs, Curator of Lever House Art Collection and Artistic Director of Spring Place; and Piper Marshall, Curator and PhD student at Columbia University. “PULSE Art Fair’s commitment to presenting solo artist projects provides critical exposure for young and under-recognized artists. It was an honor to work with this year’s jury to select the 2017 PULSE PRIZE winner”, Pace stated. Mikesell continued, “I was very happy to see the tremendous diversity in the artists represented and the mediums in which they worked.” and Marshall added, “PULSE continues to be a laboratory of ideas”.

Represented by the South African-based Christopher Moller Gallery, a returning PULSE Miami Beach exhibitor, Gum offers considered perspectives to the meta-narratives of an ever-changing world through the series of five large portraits shown in her booth. Aptly entitled ‘Ode to She’, the artist’s latest work, intuitively completed at the beginning of South Africa’s 2017 commemorations of women’s month (celebrated on the 9th August locally each year) explores, and encapsulates the essence of what it means to be a Xhosa woman, a human expression of ‘womanhood’. “Through this work, I want to re-iterate the power and representation of each woman, acknowledging all the women I have encountered throughout my journey.”, explains the artist. “So I needed it to be a ‘poem’, a ‘song’, ‘a letter to she; … and I don’t mean ‘SHE’ in the gender confined or prescriptive sense. I speak of SHE, the Being, who understands HE/SHE to be a FORCE, like nature, a person who has been beaten, battered but is still able to rise”.

Based in Cape Town, South African artist Tony Gum (b. 1996) is guided by the freedom, language and rhythm of life that is art. Tony Gum’s often minimalist, yet considered, approach to story-telling, translated onto canvas has, to date, informed her distinctive evolutionary journey. Vogue named Gum “The Coolest Girl in Cape Town” and with over 40k followers on Instagram, Gum’s story is certainly being broadcast to a wide audience.

The nominees for the 2017 PULSE PRIZE included artists JoAnne Carson (Black & White Gallery / Project Space), Cristobal (WHITECONCEPTS), Andy Dixon (BEERS LONDON), Alejandro Hernandez (CEDE GALERIA), Amy Hill (Front Room Gallery), Sky Kim (Carrie Able Gallery), Todd Lanam (Mark Wolfe Contemporary), Diane Landry (VIVIANEART), Raquel Maulwurf (Livingstone Gallery), Mariu Palacios (Ginsberg Galeria), Lissa Rivera (ClampArt), Donna Ruff (Rick Wester Fine Art), Devan Shimoyama (Samuel Freeman Gallery), Deborah Tarr (LPH), and Lisa Wright (COATES & SCARRY).

Tony Gum joins a list of notable past winners including most recently Devan Shimoyama of Samuel Freeman Gallery who presented an immersive installation of multi-disciplinary works at PULSE Miami Beach 2016.

ABOUT PULSE CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR Founded in 2005, PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is an established part of the annual art calendar and is recognized for providing its international community of emerging and established galleries with a dynamic platform for connecting with a global audience. PULSE offers visitors an engaging environment in which to discover and collect the most compelling contemporary art being produced today. For further information about PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, please visit www.pulseartfair.com.

PULSE Miami Beach I Thursday, December 7 – Sunday, December 10, 2017 Indian Beach Park, 4601 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33140

For additional information, please contact:

Gia Kuan | pulseartfair@nadinejohnson.com | 212.228.5555

 

FEATURED IMAGE: Tony Gum, Land of Milk & Honey, 2017. C-type fuji crystal archival print, dibond mounted, 146 x 97 cm – edition of 10. Courtesy of the artist & Christopher Moller Gallery.

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