Cameron Fuller (MFA07) and Sarah Frost (BFA89) are two of three award recipients of the Great Rivers Biennial 2010, along with Martin Brief.

A collaboration between the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation, the program is designed to strengthen the arts scene in St. Louis by identifying talented emerging local artists, as well as mid-career artists exploring new directions, and providing them with financial support as well as local and national visibility.

Each of the winning artists receives a $20,000 cash award, as well as an exhibition at the Contemporary, which will open on April 30, 2010, and run through August 8, 2010. Jurors selected the three artists from more than 235 submissions, representing a wide range of media including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, video, and new media.

Born and raised in Washington, Fuller received his BFA in 2005 from San Francisco State University, where he studied printmaking, before coming to Washington University for his master’s degree. His installations have been shown at Fort Gondo, White Flag Projects, Maps Contemporary Art Space, and Gallery 210 (all in St. Louis) and at La Esquinain in New York. In addition, Fuller has collaborated on installations with Sarah Paulsen at Laumeier Sculpture Park, Open Lot, The Foundry Art Centre, and Saint Charles Community College.

A painting major during her undergraduate days at Washington University, Frost earned her MFA in sculpture and painting at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and currently works as a scenic artist from local theaters and as a graphic designer. She has received numerous awards and grants, including the Riverfront Times’ Visual Arts Mastermind award in 2008 and grants from Arts in Transit and the Missouri Arts Council. Some of her recent exhibitions include Built at Laumeier Sculpture Park, Our Commodity at Regional Arts Commission, Sarah Frost: Recent Sculpture at Foundry Art Centre, Sarah Frost at Mad Art Gallery, Third Annual Juried Exhibition at The Jacoby Arts Center, Southern Illinois Artists Open Competition at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, and Art St. Louis XXII, the Exhibition at Art St. Louis.

Originally from Chicago, Brief’s recent work explores the way language, thought, and information relate to contemporary culture and the creation of self. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including shows in New York, Paris, Zurich, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and is in several public collections, including those of the Art Institute of Chicago, JoanFlasch Artist Book Collection, the Center for Creative Photograph (Tucson, AZ), and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (Honolulu, HI). Brief is currently an assistant professor at Saint Louis University.

The jurors for the Great Rivers Biennial 2010 are Douglas Fogle (chief curator and deputy director of exhibitions and public programs at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles), Melissa Franklin (director of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Philadelphia), and Laura Steward (Phillips director of SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico).