ATLANTA— Jessica Blinkhorn (M.F.A. ‘10), a Drawing and Painting instructor in The College of the Arts at Georgia State, has been named a the recipient of the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts.
Blinkhorn is one of 188 winners of the prestigious fellowship out of 3,000 applicants. Since 1925, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has recognized those “who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”
Diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy-Type 2 at the age of 19 months, Blinkhorn was given a life expectancy of 3 years. Now, at age 44, she has been featured on ABC World News, was the subject of the award-winning documentary short "Grounded by Reality" and has won numerous awards and grants for her work.
An interdisciplinary artist, social rights activist and educator, Blinkhorn’s work explores performance art with an emphasis on creating and constructing a social narrative to promote change, equity and inclusion.
Blinkhorn’s disease is deteriorative, and she has discussed the process of coming to terms with the truths of her diagnosis, accepting that her hands are on “borrowed time.”
“As a creative, you always have to find a way to create,” she said. “Much like Matisse, who started cutting shapes out of paper when he could no longer create large scale works, I found a way. Performance became the paper I knew I could always leave a mark on and when my hands decide to quit working, I will still have my voice and my ability to charm people with my sweet Southern sass. Georgia State, my mentors, and my peers gave me permission to embrace my self-perceived imperfections and make them into something magnificent.”
Blinkhorn is the first alumna and fourth member of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design community to receive this prestigious award alongside Emerita Professor Nancy Floyd in 2022, current Professor Craig Drennen in 2018, and friend and former faculty Jiha Moon in 2023.
“The Guggenheim Foundation’s recognition of Jessica Blinkhorn is a testament to the power of her provocative and empowering body of work. As Jessica has astutely noted, we all experience some form of disability, eventually, and her advocacy for more equitable conditions impacts us all. We applaud Jessica's brilliance and commitment," said Michael White, Director of the Welch School of Art & Design. “As a valued alumna, and more recently as faculty in the Welch School of Art & Design family, Jessica has graced our halls as both student and colleague for over a decade. We are incredibly proud to have been witness to her continuing growth as an artist and are delighted to celebrate this notable achievement with her."
For more information on the Fellows and their projects, please visit the Foundation’s website at www.gf.org. For more information about Jessica Blinkhorn’s practice, visit jeblinkhorn.wixsite.com/mysite