Three Michigan Artists Selected as Finalists for 2027 Envision Award

Three Michigan-based artists — Mandy Cano Villalobos, Abhishek Narula and Joey Quiñones — have been selected as finalists for the 2027 Envision: The Michigan Artist Initiative award.

Envision, led by the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan and its Stamps Gallery, is now in its fourth iteration showcasing the depth of artistic excellence and merit of contemporary art practices in Michigan and inspiring the next generation of artists living and working in the state.

The 2027 Envision finalists are:

Mandy Cano Villalobos

Mandy Cano Villalobos is a visual artist whose work spans installation, textiles, sculpture, and performance, influenced by her migrant upbringing which engages notions of home, death, belonging, and cultural identity. Self-dubbed a ​“cultural scrapper”, she mainly works with castoff objects – broken jewelry, orphaned toys, stained clothing, etc. – to craft opulent works that harness material memories steeped in human touch.

Cano Villalobos has exhibited internationally, including with drj (Berlin, Germany), Proyecto H (Mexico City), Marisa Newman Projects (New York, NY), Bridge Projects (Los Angeles, CA), Modern Art Gallery (Veszprém, Hungary), Casa Pauly (Puerto Montt, Chile), among others. She received her MFA from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. and currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, MI.

Abhishek Narula

Abhishek Narula is an artist working across sculpture, installation, sound, and video with a creative practice that takes the form of interventions, working with what is already present by reorienting and disrupting familiar objects and sites to open formal and poetic possibilities within them.

Narula’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Science Gallery Detroit, Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology (New London, CT), the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Vancouver, B.C., Canada). A Lecturer and Robotics Designer in the University of Michigan’s Robotics Department in Ann Arbor, Narula received his MFA in Studio Art from the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, and his MS and BS in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Joey Quiñones

Joey Quiñones is a fiber artist, ceramicist, and mixed media sculptor with work focused on African American and Caribbean history, particularly the development of queer Afro-Latine identity.

Their work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues such as the Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), the Akron Art Museum, the Shepherd (Detroit, MI), and The Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH). Joey has an MFA in Studio Art from Indiana University, Bloomington and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. They are currently the Artist-in-Residence/Head of the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

“Michigan artists have always been unique in that they draw from a convergence of ingenuity, diverse backgrounds with rich cultural histories, and a spirit of reinvention that gives creative work here an engaging character,” said Dylan AT Miner, Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Research, Creative Practice, and Graduate Education at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design. ​“Through Envision, the Stamps School of Art and Design and Stamps Gallery is proud to celebrate distinctive voices that bring greater visibility to artists living and working in our state and connect audiences with work that challenges, moves, and inspires.”

A prominent national panel of jurors reviewed creativity from hundreds of artists and collaboratives to reach the final shortlist selections for the 2027 Envision recipients. Jurors include: Rehema Barber, Chief Curator, Kalamazoo Institute of Art; Laura Mott, Chief Curator, Cranbrook Art Museum; and artist Sara Nickleson, winner of the 2025 Envision: Michigan Artist Initiative Award.

From June 10 through July 31, 2027, the three Michigan artists will present their work in an exhibition at Stamps Gallery. The jury will then reconvene to select the Envision 2027 Award winner and recipient of a $5,000 prize, who will be announced at the exhibition’s opening Thursday, June 17, 2027 at 6 p.m.