Visual Arts Professor Awarded Prestigious Rome Prize

Helen O'Leary, professor of art in the Penn State School of Visual Arts, has been named a winner of the 2018-2019 Rome Prize in the visual arts category by the American Academy in Rome.

The prestigious Rome Prize has been awarded annually by the academy for over a century as a way to support innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities. The visual arts category is the most competitive of the eleven recognized and O'Leary's proposal was selected from more than 500 applications.

As part of her award, O'Leary will receive a stipend, workspace and room and board for a period of almost one year at the academy's 11-acre campus in Rome.

"I've been building my own version of Rome for most of my painting life. My studio is an archeological site, a dictionary of the savages of age, a compendium of erasures, renovations and restorations, each piece commenting on its predecessor," O'Leary said.

Full story, by Leon Valsechi