{"id":79468,"date":"2021-05-21T09:38:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T13:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/?p=79468"},"modified":"2023-02-01T14:56:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T19:56:51","slug":"gauguin-had-tahiti-shantel-miller-has-dorchester-cfa-grad-has-big-plans-for-20000-kahn-award","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/news\/articles\/2021\/gauguin-had-tahiti-shantel-miller-has-dorchester-cfa-grad-has-big-plans-for-20000-kahn-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauguin Had Tahiti, Shantel Miller Has Dorchester: CFA Grad Has Big Plans for $20,000 Kahn Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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May 21, 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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Painter Shantel Miller (CFA\u201921) will use her Kahn Award funds to support her work, including securing a new studio space and buying paints and canvas. Photo by Charles Graham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Annual competition for emerging artists recognizes five additional finalists<\/h3>\n

This article was first published in <\/span><\/em>BU Today <\/span>on May 21, 2021. By<\/em> Joel Brown. Photo by Charles Graham<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

EXCERPT<\/h5>\n

Painter Shantel Miller<\/a> <\/span>grew up 45 minutes outside Toronto, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, both ministers. When she came to Boston University to pursue an MFA, she moved into an all-Christian women\u2019s house in Dorchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my first time living in a Black neighborhood, and I felt like I was home in a sense,\u201d Miller (CFA\u201921) says. \u201cPeople felt familiar. I also experienced a renewed sense of interconnectedness in my life, a new sense of spirituality\u2014just being inspired wherever I went. I spent a lot of time walking in Franklin Park during the pandemic, and it really helped me reconnect with myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

She began to imagine a series of paintings exploring the lives of the people she met in church and elsewhere. \u201cI felt my experience in Dorchester could be encapsulated in painting, but I couldn\u2019t do all of that while I was in school,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew that my experience there was super special, and I wanted to make paintings of the people I would see, and learn more about their ties to Dorchester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she will have both the time and the financial freedom to pursue her project.<\/p>\n

Miller is the winner of the grand prize in this year\u2019s College of Fine Arts <\/span>Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award<\/a> <\/span>competition. The annual $20,000 award is intended to kick-start the post-Commencement career of the chosen artist. She will use the funds to support her project for a period of months, secure a studio space, and purchase a digital camera, paint, canvas, and other supplies.<\/p>\n

\"Shantel
The Ultimate Gift, oil on canvas, 72\u00d748 inches, 2019-2021. Photo by Julia Featheringill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt feels good,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cI just finished finals, so there was a lot, lot, lot of very little sleep and working really late in the studio, but I felt like this is what I\u2019m supposed to be doing. And now I have this huge, huge amount of support to push me forward. it\u2019s new and exciting and also kind of scary, like your dreams coming true. You don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen, and then when it does, it\u2019s like, <\/span>Whoa!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller says she likes tackling a body of work, \u201cbecause then you notice similar patterns and ways of seeing, and I think that\u2019s what I\u2019m really going to aim for with this project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s way bigger, beyond myself,\u201d she says, \u201cand I want to go and visit different Black churches and kind of document what I see through painting and be able to share peoples\u2019 stories through art.\u201d In addition to creating portraits and figurative paintings, her project will also include historical research on the congregations she visits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to start to explain the project to the churches I visit and build trust with them and see if they\u2019re on board, and take my time to see what is revealed through this process,\u201d says Miller, who earned a bachelor\u2019s in drawing and painting at Ontario College of Art and Design. \u201cI\u2019m typically inspired by my immediate surroundings, so I don\u2019t plan too much beforehand. While I\u2019m on site, that\u2019s when I start to absorb and make connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she does have a title for the series already: <\/span>Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? <\/span><\/em>Sound familiar? It\u2019s also the title of one of her favorite paintings, a Paul Gaugin masterpiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s at the MFA,\u201d she says. \u201cGaugin is one of my earliest influences as a painter; my influences in color all stem from him. Last year was my first time seeing that painting in person. I love how long it is, how it tells a story\u2014multiple stories\u2014and involves histories that are not his own. I wanted to make that connection for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shantel
Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 26\u00d724 inches, 2019, by Shantel Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cShantel really sees people,\u201d says Harvey Young, dean of CFA. \u201cShe connects with their experiences, their humanity, their sense of themselves as Black and brown people in the world. She captures her subjects\u2019 essence\u2014their soul\u2014in a way that I find compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the time of Black Lives Matter, no one seeing Miller\u2019s series of portraits of young Black men, <\/span>Side Profile<\/em><\/a>, could ignore the reference to mug shots. In others, the meaning is a little less direct, such as the painting of a door ajar with a muscular leg coming through\u2014someone of color has their foot in the door. Being Black and brown in the world is a fraught topic, and while Miller\u2019s work is not often polemical, it is based on her lived experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way for me to process,\u201d she says. \u201cHow do I feel living in my body and how does this relate to other people who share similar experiences? It\u2019s really through the act of making that I\u2019m able to provide myself some relief, as a way to participate and a way to share with others. I believe the person is political. It\u2019s not overt, but I do feel like the act of making is a political act. It\u2019s not something that necessarily needs to be spelled out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Five additional winners<\/h3>\n

Funded by a $1 million endowment from the late Esther Kahn (Wheelock\u201955, Hon.\u201986), the annual Kahn Award competition is open to CFA students, both undergrad and grad, in their final semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kahn Award provides funding for six talented, entrepreneurial graduating students to invest in themselves, their creativity, their future,\u201d Young says.<\/p>\n

In addition to Miller\u2019s grand prize, five Class of 2021 students received $2,500 stipends:<\/p>\n