Charlotte Street Announces Visual Artist Awards and Generative Performing Artist Awards for 2020

Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF) announces the 2020 Visual Artist and Generative

Performing Artist Awards from the Kansas City region. A milestone on CSF’s giving is this

year also marks the 100th Visual Artist Award granted.

Recipients of the Visual Artist Awards are Cory Imig, Glyneisha Johnson, and Kathy Liao.

Liao tells Informality, “I am very honored and humbled to be awarded the Charlotte Street

Foundation Visual Artist Award and the opportunities afforded to me through the grant- it is

truly significant. The award will allow me to continue to be ambitious and find new

connections with my work, and fund my research and travels to Taiwan in the near future.”

Cory Imig is an artist based in the Midwest. Her work takes the form of large-scale

installation made through a process of building, moving, observing and rearranging the

assembled spaces that surround us. Imig has exhibited across the United States, including

Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Hardesty Art Center and The Crystal

Bridges Museum of American Art.

In addition to her studio practice, she is a co-editor of Impractical Spaces, a collaborative

national project and groundbreaking anthology of publications that offer a historical look at

defunct artist-run projects throughout the United States in small to mid-sized cities. She is

also a founding member of PLUG Projects, an artist-run space in Kansas City.

Multimedia artist Glyneisha Johnson lives and works in Kansas City, MO. Johnson completed

her Bachelor of Fine Art in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2017. Her work has

been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in the United States, including the

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, KS, the Union for Contemporary Art

in Omaha, NE and Haw Contemporary in Kansas City, MO. Johnson was a 2019 Summer

studio artist-in-residence at Art Omi in Ghent, NY and is an artist-in-residence at Bemis

Center in January 2020.

Kathy Liao currently resides in Kansas City, MO, and teaches at Missouri Western State

University as the Director of the Painting and Printmaking Studio Art Program. Liao received

her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from the

University of Washington, Seattle.

Liao is a recipient of various awards including the StudiosINC Studio Residency Program,

Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency, Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant,

Artist Grants from Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, and Jentel Artist

Residency. In the past, Liao taught at Boston University, University of Washington, Seattle

University, and Gage Academy of Art. Her work was shown in Boston, New York, Los

Angeles, Seattle, Kansas City, and many other cities nationally and internationally.

This year’s Generative Performing Artist Awards are given to Stacy Busch and Vi Tran.

Busch is a composer, performer, and producer of collaborative concert experiences. Stacy is

passionate about reaching underserved, misrepresented communities through creative work

as a means of breaking down social stigma and fostering greater awareness around mental

health, addiction, and LGBTQ+ issues. Busch is the founder of No Divide KC, an arts/social

justice non-profit that creates events for social causes.

She composes pieces through improvisational performance and largely works in electronic

music utilizing her voice in innovative ways. Stacy focuses on producing shows that combine

theatrical elements as well as bridge pop and experimental performances. All of her shows

are in collaboration with a range of artists from various mediums. Her work is about

expressing complex and ancient human struggles in ways that are innovative and

experimental yet accessible to all people.

Vi Tran is a preacher’s kid and the son of butchers. Vi was born in the shadow of Sai Gon,

Vietnam and raised in the cattle country of southwestern Kansas. He is equal parts sea salt

and wheat fields. As a storyteller, actor, singer-songwriter, composer, and playwright, Vi

utilizes a variety of methods and disciplines to examine topics as varied as the unpacking of

inherited cultural trauma among refugee populations living in the diaspora to the dismantling

of the toxic masculinity within the mythos of the Hemingway Hero.

His work, including his autobiographical Vietnamese American folk musical, The Butcher’s

Son, straddles the dichotomy of Americana and the foreign Other. Using potent and

empathetic storytelling about the difficult subject matter but with the accessible and

plainspoken straightforwardness of his southwestern Kansas roots, Vi’s work presents a path

to healing, hope, and unity in an ever-divided society.

Each Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award Fellow receives an unrestricted cash grant of

$10,000, and inclusion in the 2020 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards Exhibition at

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, KS later in 2020. The exhibition will

be curated by Bruce Hartman, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Nerman Museum

of Contemporary Art.

The 2020 Charlotte Street Generative Performing Artist Awards recognize two exceptional

artists in the fields of dance, theatre, music, opera, sound art, performance art, multimedia

performance, spoken word, puppetry or hybrid performance-based forms. Both of the artists

will also receive an unrestricted cash award of $10,000 and their public performances will be

promoted by Charlotte Street throughout the rest of the 2020 calendar year.

All of the 2020 Charlotte Street Award Fellows were selected through competitive processes

beginning with open calls for applications from artists based in the five-county Kansas City

Metro Area. Artist selections were made by a panel of jurors consisting of renowned and

qualified art professionals. Jurors participated in in-person interviews, presentations, and

studio visits, resulting in the selection of 10 finalists for the Generative Performing Artists

Awards and 10 finalists for the Visual Artist Awards.

Kathy Liao, 3 Am Kitchen, 2017, painting

Cory Imig, Orange Stick II (41.8441° N, 71.4382° W), detail, 2017, masking tape and found sticks.

Glyneisha Johnson, Sultry, 2019, mixed media

Stacy Busch

Vi Tran