Artadia has named Krista Clark and William Downs the winners of its 2018 Atlanta Artadia Awards. This is Artadia’s sixth year supporting artists working in the greater Atlanta area. Both Clark and Downs will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funds.

Award finalists were selected from a pool of two hundred applicants by a jury comprising Wassan Al-Khudhairi, chief curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Chicago-based independent curator Nathaniel Hitchcock; and Jonathan Odden, a former curatorial assistant at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. Then Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director of the Spelman College Museum of Art, and Sarah Higgins, curator at Kennesaw State University’s Zuckerman Museum of Art conducted studio visits with each of the five shortlisted artists—who included Ariel Dannielle, Danielle Deadwyler, and Erin Jane Nelson—to determine the winners.

“We were inspired by the rigor and sheer talent of artists Krista Clark and William Downs,” Brownlee and Higgins said in a statement. “The sophistication of their practice, ambition for their future plans and intentionality behind their decision making punctuate why they are 2018 Atlanta Artadia Awardees. We are excited to watch how this recognition propels these two deserving artists into the next stage of their career and practices.”

Since 1999, Artadia has awarded over $3 million to more than three hundred artists in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.