Congratulations to Amy Werntz, Winner of The Bennett Prize: Rising Voices 4, and Nicole M. Santiago, the Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt Award Winner!
Amy Werntz
The paintings of Amy Werntz reveal an obsession with time and the everyday moments and experiences, often overlooked, that define most of our lives. The artist focuses on an older generation of people, and how their posture, clothing, and bodies reveal the stories of their lives. In depicting elder subjects, she hopes to counteract the ways in which “society has become so focused on youth as the representation of beauty and seems to have lost the reverence for age and experience,” and to challenge the viewer to confront fears of aging and an impulse to overlook our seniors as a result. Her figures inhabit shared spaces — grocery stores, bookstores, cafes, and public sidewalks — drawing attention to the experiences we hold in common and inviting us to change our perceptions of aging.
Werntz is a practicing painter and interior designer, with a BFA in interior design from the Art Institute of Dallas, Texas. Her paintings have been exhibited widely in Texas and in group shows in Wausau, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She has received recognition and numerous awards for her portraits from the Portrait Society of America and took first place in the Richeson 75 International Art Competition Portrait/Figure category in 2020 and second place in 2023. She was a finalist for the Bennett Prize in 2021.
Werntz resides in Dallas, Texas.
Amy’s Artwork:
Nicole M. Santiago
Nicole Santiago’s paintings are autobiographical in their inspiration, of which she says: “I intend to construct something universal that stretches beyond the limits of my own experiences, expanding into broader themes of love, loss, and duty.” Her pictorial spaces tumble with tilting planes and layered imagery and mark making, visual evidence of her intuitive approach to formal and narrative concerns that leaves a sense of unease and uncertainty in the final painting. Her domestic scenes are crowded with everyday objects, frequently punctuated by food and evidence of celebrations — cakes, gifts and wrapping paper, party hats and dresses, and sweets. Children and visible pregnancies speak to family, and all of the joys, struggles, and sacrifices that entails.
Santiago’s paintings have been exhibited in over one-hundred solo and group exhibitions around the United States and garnered numerous juried awards. She holds an MFA in painting from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and a BFA in studio art from Indiana University, Bloomington. Santiago is a Professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she has taught since 2006. She has also instructed at Berea College, Oregon State University, the New Hampshire Institute of Art, the University of New Hampshire, and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of multiple William and Mary Research grants and was artist in residence at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, East City Art, Fine Art Connoisseur, Painting Perceptions, and Art New England. Santiago is represented by First Street Gallery in New York City.
Santiago resides in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Nicole’s Artwork:
