RHODE ISLAND, November 14 - R.I. State Council on the Arts' newly announced General Operating Support for Artists has awarded $6,000 per year for three years to the following four artists: Anthony "AM." Andrade, Evans Molina Fernandez, Jeffrey Yoo Warren, all of Providence, and Warwick's Saberah Malik.

RISCA's Executive Director Lynne McCormack said, "This new grant program supports artists across disciplines and is reflective of our efforts to change our grantmaking to center equity and inclusion. We are proud to recognize these individual artists for their contributions to the civic and artistic life of the state."

Recipients of the new grant receive support to work toward large, specific, self-identified goals in their art practice. This program includes a cohort community for meetings and learning opportunities that are focused on grantees' needs. The program requires that participants submit a report once per year and remain Rhode Island residents for the full granting period of three years.

The grant program will open for applications on May 1, 2023.

The recipients are:

Anthony "AM." Andrade (they/them), Providence, is an activist, visual + media artist, educator, choreographer, and award-winning composer. As a Co-Director of The Haus of Glitter Dance Company + Performance Lab, Andrade's work is centered on connecting the individual human body to the collective human body, historical intervention and cultural preservation. AM. is also a certified (YT-200) yoga + wellness instructor and is a project manager for AS220's Racial Justice Initiative. AM. aims to cultivate care-centered spaces for communities to practice breath, self-expression, justice, care and resilience.

Evans Molina Fernandez, Providence, is a multi-disciplinary artist that experiments in painting, performance, music/sound and experimental video. He uses guerrilla documentary, dance and performance as educational tools. He was born and raised in Cuba and moved to the United States in November 2004. His art is inspired by themes such as heritage, ritual, immigration, family, folklore, and legend. Evans strives to create cultural exchange with the objective of destroying prejudices and political blockades. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, events, and festivals in Cuba, Spain, Poland, and the United States. Evans works as an independent artist taking on a social and educational role by performing in various schools, cultural centers, and community spaces, using art as a form of social medicine.

Jeffrey Yoo Warren (he/him), Providence, is a Korean American artist-educator, community scientist, illustrator and researcher, who collaboratively creates community science projects which decenter dominant culture in environmental knowledge production. His recent work combines ancestral craft practices and creative work with diasporic memory through virtual collaborative worldbuilding. Warren is a member of AS220, a facilitator with Movement Education Outdoors, and part of the New Old art collective with Aisha Jandosova, hosting artmaking and storytelling events with older adults.

Saberah Malik, Warwick, grew up in Pakistan, received BFA and MFA in graphic design from Panjab University, Lahore. Traveling to Pratt Institute, New York City, on a National Merit Scholarship for a master's in Industrial Design, complimented her South-Asian cultural heritage with Western art education. Her current work celebrates her passion for textiles in all their colorful patterned brilliance and sensual tactile nuances. With empathy as a catalyst for understanding, graphic arrangements, dimensional sensitivity, joy of light and color, exuberance of texture and pattern, coalesce in transparent, holographic like textile sculptures in a mature expression of progression from traditional surface work to a new direction of geo-politically engaged sculptural work. Malik has conducted workshops at prestigious institutions, exhibited widely and received distinguished awards.