Art Lecturer & MFA alum Erika Terwilliger named 2022/23 MCAD-Jerome Foundation Fellows

Congrats to Lecturer and MFA alum Erika Terwilliger, who has been named one of four 2022/23 MCAD-Jerome Foundation Fellows!

Last week the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, on behalf of the Jerome Foundation, announced the four recipients of the 2022/23 MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Early Career Artists: Roshan Ganu, Erika Terwilliger, and Peng Wu of the Twin Cities, and Moira (Miri) Villiard from Duluth, Minnesota.

The artists were selected out of a pool of 88 Minnesota-based applicants by a panel of arts professionals that included Heather Bhandari, NY-based curator, co-founder of Art World Learning, and co-author of Art/Work; Adriana Corral, Houston-based artist; and Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial fellow of visual arts, Walker Art Center.

About the Artist

Erika Terwilliger is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Terwilliger’s practice is driven through labor intensive techniques where understanding builds through repetition. Labor is only part of the process as the practice is most alive when the ephemeral materials she works with slump, drip, unravel, and crumble. The work exists across mediums, but the through-line is an interest in tactile intimacy, repeated failure, and the knowledge that failure builds. Terwilliger received a BA in Studio Arts from St. Olaf College in 2016 and an MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2020. During her time at the U of M she received fellowships to study textile and weaving practices in New York and Dundee Scotland. She has been selected for various residency programs at Second Shift Studios, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and Franconia Sculpture Park. Currently, Terwilliger is a lecturer in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art in the area of sculpture and ceramics.

“My work is firmly rooted in the home as a site to explore patterns of consumption, growth, and decay.  I’m curious about domestic systems that move in cycles, in methods of unmaking and remaking, generation and preservation. The practice takes stock of the mundane objects and materials that surround me. I want to care for these things, but in a way that eventually wears them into nothing. I want to create systems that toe the line of absurdity, but still know when it’s time to shed their lining.

“Day to day the practice is driven through labor intensive techniques where understanding builds through repetition. The work exists across mediums, but the through-line is an interest in tactile intimacy, repeated failure and the knowledge that failure builds. Labor is only part of the process as the practice is most alive when the ephemeral materials I work with slump, drip, unravel, and crumble. I want the question of how a thing came to be and how it falls apart to become confused. It’s this blurring of constructive and destructive motion that generates empathy towards the leftovers that are at the heart of the practice.”

To see more of the artist’s work, visit Erika Terwilliger’s website or follow her on Instagram @erikaterwilliger.

About the Fellowship

This competitive fellowship provides $12,000 awards to each recipient for the production of new work. In addition to having their work featured in a group exhibition at the MCAD Gallery, the fellows will have the opportunity to meet with visiting critics over the course of the fellowship year, to have an essay written about their work that appears in the exhibition catalog, and to participate in a public panel discussion.

Since 1981, this fellowship program, funded by a grant from the Jerome Foundation, has artistically and critically advanced the careers of more than 200 visual artists.

About the Jerome Foundation

The Jerome Foundation, founded in 1964 by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972), honors his legacy through multi-year grants to support the creation, development, and presentation of new works by early career artists.

The Foundation makes grants to vocational early career artists, and those nonprofit arts organizations that serve them, in all disciplines in the state of Minnesota and the five boroughs of New York City.