Lily Cox-Richard Awarded Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship

Lily Cox-Richard, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and A&D Assistant Professor, has been awarded a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. This summer, she will spend two months in Washington DC doing research at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and creating new work for her project The Stand/​Possessing Powers.

Envisioned as a contemporary Hall of Plasters, the sculptures in this body of work depict tree stumps, wheat sheaves, and massive quartz crystals: props that were once used structurally and allegorically in American Neo-Classical figure sculpture. Each of Cox-Richard’s carved plasters is based on a marble sculpture by Hiram Powers (1805−1873), once known as The Father of American Sculpture. In Powers’ works, idealized female figures symbolize allegorical themes. Cox-Richard re-carves each sculpture in plaster at the same scale as Powers’ — but without the figure. By shifting the focus to the supporting elements and the contact points, Cox-Richard hopes to show a different allegory: ​“I aim to create a new whole, not a fragment or ruin. In condensing these sculptures down to their supports, figure and ground conflate into new forms, revealing latent content.”

Lily Cox-Richard has also been awarded a Faculty Seed Grant from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender to support this work. The Stand/​Possessing Powers will be exhibited at Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, Virginia in March 2013.