Denis Roussel Annual Fellowship

Image from Denis’ 2007 solo show at the Center for Fine Art Photography

Why

Denis Roussel, 41, was a talented and dedicated photographer who was beloved by his family, friends, and the photography community. Denis was lost to bile duct cancer on July 12, 2017.

This annual award honors Roussel’s memory and legacy. Denis inspired many to take risks in their work, step outside the boundaries of traditional images, and realize the magic of photography.

The fellowship is to nurture artists in their artistic journey and is entirely funded by Denis’s family and friends.

What

This fellowship is tailored to help the selected artist reach the next level in their artistic path.

Fellowship Includes

  • A stipend of $1,500

  • Various personalized resources to aid the recipient's artistic journey.
     

Who

The DRF is open to all photo-based artists at least 18 years old in the USA.

We encourage artists from historically marginalized groups to submit.

There is no cost to enter.

How

To apply:

  • Follow the instructions in the online application.

  • Have 10-20 work examples compiled into one PDF document.

Applications are closed for this round.

The 2025 fellow will be announced on November 13, 2024

 

Meet the 2025 Judges:

Hamidah Glasgow

Hamidah Glasgow has been the Executive Director and Curator at The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, since 2009. She holds a master’s degree in humanities specializing in visual and gender studies and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Hamidah is a co-founder of the Strange Fire Collective.

Kei Ito

Kei Ito is a Japan-born visual artist based in the East Coast area who primarily works with camera-less photography and installation art. Ito received his BFA from Rochester Institute Technology in 2014 and MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. Ito was the Roussel Fellow in 2021.

Beth Johnston

Beth Johnston is a visual artist working across photography, video, and installation to explore the intersection of ecology, cultural imaginations,  and knowledge systems. She currently works between the high mountain desert of the Southwest and coastlands of New England. She was the Roussel fellow in 2023

Samantha Johnston

Samantha is a photographer and arts administrator based in Denver, Colorado. She is the Executive Director & Curator at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. She received her BFA from Alfred University School of Art & Design in 2002 and her MFA from Lesley University College of Art & Design in 2009.

Image © Grant Leighton

Sidian Liu

Sidian Liu was born in 1997 in Foshan, China. She obtained her BA in English at Shanghai International Studies University in 2019, and her MFA in Photography at Parsons, The New School in 2023. She is the 2024 Roussel fellow.

Mark Sink

Mark Sink, a private art consultant, represents and curates local and international cutting-edge fine art photography. Mark is a co-founder of The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and founder of the Month of Photography Denver and The Big Picture street art projects. His personal fine art photography is shown and collected worldwide.

 

Meet the Fellows:

2025

Dominique Muñoz

 
 

Dominique Muñoz is a visual artist who uses photographic language to engage with personal and collective memory. He examines how we archive ourselves through images and spaces, shaping our sense of being. He challenges traditional ideas of masculinity by unpacking objects from his childhood home, highlighting the undercurrents of matriarchal labor and care. Family blankets become the foundation for weaving new patterns into his work –  a remixing of traditions and culture shaped by migrations to the United States. Working with found objects, images, printmaking, and performance, his practice centers on themes of assimilation, desire, family, and memory. 

Dominique is from Falls Church, Va. He received his BFA in Photography and Film from VCUarts in 2015 and was the inaugural Photographer-in-Residence for the 1906 Group, where he highlighted the collective effort involved in construction. In 2017, he had his first solo exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

This past summer, Dominique was selected as one of Ox-Bow’s School of Art Summer Fellows and served as a guest curator for The Curated Fridge. His work has been shown in numerous galleries, including Candela Books & Gallery in Richmond, VA., Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, NC., Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA., and Soft Times Gallery in San Francisco, CA, 

Dominique is currently pursuing his MFA in Studio Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Merit Fellow, where he continues his research into family archives, colonial histories, and the lore of his Guatemalan ancestors.

 

Sidian Liu is an image-based artist, translator, and home builder. Her practice reacts to a sense of displacement by utilizing images, text, performance, installation, and socially engaged methods. Her works address the issue of social barriers, and through her work she focuses on the participation and interaction of the public, facilitating intimacy from a distance while establishing a space to feel belonging through an exchange of trust and respect.

Sidian Liu was born in 1997 in Foshan, China. She obtained her BA in English at Shanghai International Studies University in 2019, and her MFA in Photography at Parsons, The New School in 2023.

Sidian is the recipient of the Snider Prize (MoCP, US, 2023), the 9th Annual Photography Rankings in China (Photography Museum of Lishui, China, 2022), “Kunpeng Award'' of China Young Photographer Promotion Plan (the 21st Pingyao International Photography Festival, China, 2021), the top prize of First Female Photographer Competition by Miroir Project (China, 2021), and the top prize of Banshan Photography Award (Japan, 2020), etc. Her works have been shown in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Lishui, and New York City.

Beth Johnston (she/hers) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator making work around, about, amidst, from within the climate crisis. Beth’s work investigates and challenges inherited ways of knowing and is indebted to Latinx, Black, Indigenous, Queer, and other voices aligned in acknowledging that the climate crisis is rooted in settler-colonial legacies.

Grounded in research on environmental justice, Beth’s work explores temporal chasms, climate data encounters, the decolonization of nature (and matter), entanglement, more-than-human worlds, and how to visualize the imperceptible. Her work blurs traditional boundaries between photography, sculpture, performance, video, and activism, often building conversations across mediums.

Beth has exhibited in Colorado, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and New York. She has been awarded several grants for her community-based work in Colorado including the Creative Industries Artist Grant (2020). Additionally, she has been the recipient of the Curator’s Choice at the Center for Fine Art Photography (2021) and was the finalist for RISD Museum’s Donor Prize for a public artwork installation (2022). She is currently a Colorado Art Science Environment (CASE) Fellow through the University of Colorado-Boulder. Beth received an MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 2022 with a self-designed concentration in NatureCulture studies. She currently works between the high mountain desert of the Southwest and coastlands of New England.

Visit Beth’s Website at www.beth-johnston.com

Tara Anne Cronin is an artist and writer focusing on photographic works on paper, installation and sound, and book-arts. She received a BA in Writing from New School University, an MFA from the International Center of Photography (ICP)/Bard Program, and has Twice-earned the ICP Director’s Fellowship Award.

Having exhibited throughout New York City, North America, and internationally, recent exhibitions include a group show as one of the 2019 CENTER Award Winners at Pictura Gallery held in 2020. She was awarded the 2020 FRESH Exhibition with KlompChing Gallery in DUMBO, NY. Tara had a feature with Analog Forever Magazine in 2020 and was part of a group show in 2021 at the Wailoa Arts Center in Hilo, HI.

Tara and her partner Ed took on the oldest Organically Certified Kona coffee farm in 2015 to apply their agricultural technology. She is now a coffee roaster and farmer. Tara sat on the board of directors of the Society for Kona’s Education and Art. She taught with the International Center of Photography in New York, Donkey Mill Art Center in Holualoa, HI, and was a member of Donkey Mill’s Exhibitions Committee.

Tara works primarily on the Big Island in Hawai’i in the United States. She has gallery representation with Dab Art in the Los Angeles area in California.

Visit Tara’s website at www.taracronin.com

2021

Kei Ito

Kei Ito is a conceptual photographer working primarily with camera-less image and installation art. Ito earned his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (’16) and is currently an artist in resident at Creative Alliance in Baltimore. The notable institutes which collected his work include the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Center for Photography at Woodstock, and Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.

Ito’s work addresses issues of deep loss and intergenerational connection as he explores the materiality and experimental processes of photography. His work deals with the trauma and legacy passed down from his late grandfather, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in relation to current threats of nuclear disaster. Ito’s grandfather told Ito that the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima “...was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.” Drawing upon his grandfather’s words, he mainly use the techniques of camera-less photography, exposing light sensitive material to sunlight, often timing the exposures with his breath. These sun-fused, x-ray like prints, are often paired with symbolically charged objects and artifacts relating to the history of the bomb. Through his ritualistic image-making, the audience sees how he grapples with his family’s historical connection to nuclear weapons and power. Thus, Ito’s art serves as an intermediary, a memento of his grandfather, and his own experience in today’s nuclear climate.

Visit Kei’s website at www.kei-ito.com



Born in Nashville, Tennessee, André Ramos-Woodard is a contemporary artist whose works evoke feelings of dreams and surrealistic narrative. Primarily working with photo-based manipulation and drawing, he conveys ideas of communal and personal identity through internal conflicts. Ramos-Woodard is influenced by personal experiences he went through while discovering his own identity – he is queer and African-American, both of which are well-known targets for discrimination.

He uses his art to accent the ideas of separation between him and the viewer, specifically those that may not resonate with the ideas of the Other or problems within minority groups in contemporary culture. Ramos-Woodard received his BFA from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and is currently pursuing his MFA at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Visit André’s website at www.andreramoswoodard.com

Mariana Vieira was awarded the first Denis Roussel Fellowship at the Center for Fine Art Photography. Vieira is a dedicated visual artist with an MFA in Media Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BFA in Photography from Georgia Southern University. Visit Mariana’s website, to learn more about her work.