Art Instructor Wins International Award
Nash Community College Art Instructor Georges Le Chevallier has been awarded the 2023 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Individual Artist Grant. The prestigious international award provides resources to support new and established artists in their work and scholarship. The Foundation has awarded approximately 5,000 grants to artists and organizations throughout the world totaling more than $84 million.
In January, Le Chevallier’s abstract mixed media paintings were featured in the FRANK Gallery’s Latinx Contemporary Art in Chapel Hill. Based on specific food dishes served on funerary rites around the world, he said his work is motivated by his spirituality, minimalism and the plating practices of the culinary arts to create a molecular gastronomy for painting. Georges Le Chevallier’s art also has been exhibited in Madrid, New York City, Japan, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Budapest and Philadelphia.
As a Latinx artist born in Europe, Le Chevallier grew up in Puerto Rico. “My multicultural heritage revolves around food,” he said. “I am inspired by its preparation, my family memories around the dinner table and its intricacies in different cultures.”
He describes funeral rituals as celebrations for the living, always including food and drinks. “These culinary offerings are a way to rejoice, help mourn the deceased and share a community experience.”
Le Chevallier earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College in New York City, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California State University at Long Beach and an Associate of Arts degree in Fine Arts from El Camino Community College in Torrance, California. He has taught Art at Nash Community College since 2021.
Le Chevallier has been awarded travel art residencies to the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, Chemin D’Art in Saint-Flour in France, The Bagamoyo African Modern Art Project in Tanzania, the Hungarian Multicultural Center in Balatonfured and the Chilean National Arts Endowment’s III Sculpture Symposium in Putaendo.
“I believe in life as much as I believe in death because when we negate death, we forget about the beauty of life,” Le Chevallier said. “These paintings are a personal meditation of what it means to be alive.”
Le Chevallier is the past recipient of The Artists’ Fellowship Grant in New York City, Travelocity Travel for Good Grant, Millersville University Cultural Events Grant, and a Professional Development Grant for Artists from the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and North Carolina Arts Council.
Funeral Potatoes (United States)
Mixed Media (Crushed Chicken Bones, Burnt Incense Ashes, Crushed Charcoal, Graphite, Aerosol and Acrylic Paint) on Canvas
Dikuku (South Africa)
Mixed Media (Crushed Chicken Bones, Burnt Incense Ashes, Crushed Charcoal, Graphite, Aerosol and Acrylic Paint) on Canvas
Kollyva (Greece)
Mixed Media (Crushed Chicken Bones, Burnt Incense Ashes, Crushed Charcoal, Graphite, Aerosol and Acrylic Paint) on Canvas
