UW-Stout: Art professor named recipient of McKnight Fellowship

Contact:
Jerry Poling,
Assistant Director of Communications;
715-232-2384,
polingj@uwstout.edu

Menomonie, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Stout professor has been awarded a prestigious fellowship by the Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation.

Kelly O’Brien, an assistant professor in the School of Art and Design, recently was named one of eight recipients of the 2015 McKnight Fellowships for Visual Artists. The winners, all from the Twin Cities area, were chosen from a group of 270 applicants.

Each recipient receives a $25,000 stipend. The fellowships are “designed to identify and support outstanding midcareer Minnesota artists,” according to the foundation.
O’Brien teaches sculpture, 3D design and drawing at UW-Stout. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., she has a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from Buffalo State and a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Georgia State University in Atlanta.

O’Brien also is an MFA mentor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, which administers the fellowship program and announced the awards on behalf of the McKnight Foundation.

She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and has had solo exhibits in Vermont and Minneapolis. She is an abstract sculptor whose works blend art history and contemporary art. For more information, go to her website, http://kosculpture.com.

The McKnight Artist Fellowship program granted more than $1 million to Minnesota artists in 10 areas in 2014, and the McKnight Foundation granted approximately $88 million overall in 2014.