Tunde Toth has won a prestigious bursary for her paper and fibre artworks.
ArtLinks, a free and unique five-county partnership initiative, supporting and profiling a 1,200+ growing Arts Membership, between Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow County Councils and the Arts Council, has announced details of the successful recipients of the 2009 ArtLinks Bursary Awards.
Five awards of €5,000, have been awarded to: Tunde Toth, Visual Arts (Fibre and Paper Artist/Course Facilitator ), Co Kilkenny; Gwen Wilkinson, Visual Arts (documentary photograper ), Co Carlow; Sharanne Long, Visual Arts (Documentary Film-maker/Photographer/Installation Artist ), Co Wexford; Corina Duyn, Literature (Writer/Illustrator ), Co Waterford and Annette Cleary, Music (Classical Musician/Educator ), Co Wicklow.
County Kilkenny recipient, Tunde Toth, is a well known figure for her fibre and paper artworks and her contribution to the arts locally as a facilitator in her former gallery, Kozo Gallery in Thomastown. She has and continues to offer many textile and fibre art courses for adults and children in County Kilkenny and beyond (see www.kozogallery.com ). The bursary will chiefly assist Tunde’s professional development; she recently was invited to participate in the 20th International Association of Hand Paper makers and Paper Artists Congress in Tasmania, Australia to both exhibit, lead workshops, and research developments in this area.
The bursary will enable Tunde to build on her recent experiences to create a new participatory body of work which uses organic materials, references the local environment and ultimately engages others in this unique artform.
On receiving the ArtLinks Bursary from Kilkenny arts officer, Mary Butler, Tunde said, ‘she is very excited and looking forward to the process of completing this project.’ Mary Butler added ‘that is a great endorsement of Tunde’s work and it was wonderful to tell her on her return from Tasmania that she was to receive this bursary award’.
Applications were invited from creative practitioners registered with ArtLinks from the five counties. The Bursary applications are assessed by an independent panel of art professionals with a broad experience across the Arts, who are not resident in the five partner ArtLinks counties. Awards are given to applicants who best fulfill the ArtLinks Bursary criteria.
‘If you practice an art form whether it be dance, music, literature, visual arts, theatre and film and haven’t registered with ArtLinks yet, do log on to www.artlinks.ie and join. It’s Free and the strength and vision of ArtLinks will grow with you becoming a link in ArtLinks.’
