KINGSTON, R.I. –August 8, 2008—The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Rhode Island has awarded Visual Arts Sea Grants to two professional artists whose work addresses the environment of the ocean and its coastal communities. The department administers the grants, which are funded annually by Rhode Island Sea Grant.

This year ‘s awards were given to Jannelle Iglesias from Hollis, N.Y. and Kim Salerno from Newport.

Iglesias will be researching translucent/transparent forms and creatures found at the bottom of the ocean and creating an environment made from clear plastic trash and recyclables. The installation will blur the lines between plastic and organic, provoking a sense of the unusual.

She earned a master of fine arts degree in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and holds a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from Emory University in Atlanta. She has been awarded residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Neb., the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., and the Sculpture Space in Utica, N.Y.

Salerno is creating an installation, “White Sea,” of cut paper organisms based on cephalopods and cnidarians. Light and shadow will create a luminous marine environment in which viewers can move.

Salerno earned a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a post-baccalaureate certificate in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited widely in the Northeast and was recently awarded a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant.

The Visual Arts Program of Rhode Island Sea Grant was established in 1988. For more information about the program go to http://www.uri.edu/artsci/art/v_a_grant.html.