KINGSTON, RI – August 5, 2010 – Three Massachusetts artists are recipients of the 2010 awards from the Visual Arts Program of Rhode Island Sea Grant. The University of Rhode Island Department of Art and Art History, which administers the awards, will give financial support to C.L. Terry Gips of Wellfleet, Nathalie Miebach of Brookline and Timothy Murdoch of Boston for their artistic projects focusing on the ocean environment.

Gips will scan aquatic plants at high resolution, printing them ten to 20 times their original size in sections that are pieced together. The enlarged scale gives a “vivid immediacy” to the tiniest objects, from roots, stems, and leaves to grains of sand, the artist notes of the project, entitled “Recordings and Memories of the Ocean: A Series of Intimate Observations.”

Gips’ work appears in the collections of the National Museum of American Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has exhibited throughout the Northeast.

Miebach’s award is for an installation, “Changing Waters,” that explores the ecological interaction between weather systems and marine environments within the Gulf of Maine. The work will be on view at the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Mass. in January 2011.

Miebach holds an MFA in sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Arts and is represented by the Cynthia Reeves Gallery in New York. Her work “focuses on the intersection of art and science,” she says.

“Tidal Flowers” will be a temporary installation created by Timothy Murdoch of Boston during open studios at Fort Point Channel, Boston, in October 2010. Constructed from recycled detergent bottles, the sculptures will open as the tide flows into the channel and close as it ebbs. Viewing points on nearby walkways and bridges will feature information regarding plastics in the environment.

The artist earned an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art.