YES MA'AM PROJECTS is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014
YES MA'AM Colorado Artist Grant. Our juror, Toby Kamps has selected Dmitri Obergfell, Christina
Battle, and Mario Zoots to receieve $500 each. Here is what Toby had to say about the process:

"Selecting the YES MA'AM COLORADO ARTIST GRANT winners was a blast and a challenge. So
much great art, so little money! But seriously, every state needs to support its artists and I
wholeheartedly support this wonderful, grass-roots effort - started by artists for artists to do
something smart and generous - and I'm sure the winners will put it to good use.

Nomen est omen, the Romans said, and Christina Battle is fighting the good fight against our
brave new surveillance state by massaging the (digital) medium until we all feel the burn. I've
never met Dmitri Obergfell, but I imagine him haunting the shop class at a Catholic high school
designing devilishly devious stairways to heaven. And Mario Zoots, whose name also portends
a rapid rise to notoriety, runs amok with our image culture's recent past, creating sexy Matisse-like
collage/totems for a photographic age."

The winners' work may be seen here:

http://www.dmitriobergfell.com/

http://cbattle.com/

http://www.mariozoots.com/

We would like to thank this year's nominators as well as the artists who were asked to
submit portfoliios and websites. We can't wait to make this process happen again next year!

This year's juror is Toby Kamps. Kamps earned a master's degree in art history from Williams
College. He served in high level curatorial positions at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati
and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego among other institutions. Kamps spent more
than three years at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston where he curated the show
The Old, Weird America which won a national award for thematic presentation from the
International Association of Art Critics before taking over as curator of Modern and Contemporary
Art at the Menil Collection. While at the Menil he has curated thematic shows like Silence a show
whose aim was to "examine a few of the many attemps in which artists have employed the absence
of sound or speech over the last century," as well as shows by artists like Luc Tuymans.

Links to some of Kamps' shows can be found here:

The Old, Weird America at CAMH

Silence at The Menil Collection

About the grant:
The Yes Ma'am Colorado Artist Grant aims to support contemporary individual artists, at any stage
of their career, through unrestricted cash grants and potential exhibitions in alternative art spaces.
The rigorous selection process includes a series of nominations where artists are evaluated under
the following criteria: artistic skill and creative excellence, commitment to their practice, how developed
an artist is in relation to the breadth of their career*.

Five to seven anonymous nominators with extensive knowledge of artists working in Colorado will be
asked each year to nominate two (2) artists each for consideration. These artists' information will then be
sent to an independent selector/curator from outside the state of Colorado for final selection and
dispersion of grant money. The artist(s) may be offered a solo show at a small alternative space in
addition to a cash grant. The independent juror will have the discretion to disperse the
grant money in any way they see fit to up to two grant awardees. For 2014, the total cash award
will be $1500.

The Yes Ma'am Colorado Artist Grant does not accept unsolicited nominations and annual nominators
will remain anonymous unless they choose to reveal themselves. The grant is independently and currently
privately funded**. If you would like to donate to the fund to raise the level of grant money that can go to
Colorado artists, or, if you have any questions regarding the grant, you may email
yesmaamprojects@gmail.com to receive more information.

Archive - 2013 Grant Winner