The Forward Arts Foundation, associated with the Swan Coach House Gallery, has been awarding grants and exhibition opportunities to artists for the last twenty-five years. Their premier fellowship, the Edge Award, provides artists $10,000 to pursue new work, a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center, mentorship opportunities, and a solo exhibition at the Swan Coach House Gallery. This year's awardee is Welch printmaking alumna Darya Fard, the fifth alumn to win in the history of the grant.
Darya Fard is a multidisciplinary artist with Printmaking concentration whose work examines spiritual exploration by creating metaphorical, symbolic mythical creatures inspired by Persian poetry, mythology, and psychological studies. Darya received her MFA degree from GSU, Atlanta, and her first MFA degree in painting in Iran, Tehran. Her primary aesthetic concern is in intersecting visual art and time-based mediums with Persian literature, mythology, and psychology incorporating scientistic studies and natural phenomena. In her studio practice and recent installations, she used various printmaking techniques like lithography, intaglio, silkscreen, woodcut/linocut, mono-print, and alternative photographic processes, translating them in ways that invite viewer participation and allow them to be integrated into other mediums like video, sound, dance, and shadow to create an atmospheric space.
The foundation also celebrates the artists who made it to the final round. Dour a ward finalists receive $2000 each and exhibit one piece in the Swan Coach House Gallery front space during the Edge Award Exhibition. The 2024 Edge Award Finalists include alumni Antonio Darden, Wihro Kim, and Jackson Markovic.
To learn more, visit https://www.swangallery.org/edge-award
For more information about Darya Fard's work, visit: https://daryafardstudio.com/