Kira Nam Greene on The Bennett Prize

Why It Matters

The Bennett Prize is boosting visibility and careers for women realist painters by funding exhibitions, networks and recognition, shaping how contemporary realism and diversity are represented in the art market and institutions.

Summary

Kira Nam Greene, a Brooklyn-based painter with nearly 30 years of practice, describes her shift from food-based imagery to figurative portraiture focusing on women, minorities and immigrant perspectives. She outlines her mixed-media process—collage, ink, oil and pastel—driven by what she calls a “visual rhyming” that signals completion. Greene credits The Bennett Prize for validating her emerging portrait work, connecting her with a supportive cohort of ten women realist painters and providing a rare national traveling exhibition. She praises the prize’s founders for personal engagement and its broad definition of realism, which she says counters narrow market trends.

Original Description

Kira Nam Greene, whose work explores female sexuality, desire and control through figure and food still-life paintings, was a finalist for the inaugural Bennett Prize— a biennial award for women painters working in figurative realism.

The Prize, now in its fifth cycle, was founded in 2018 by collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt with a straightforward mission: to help women painters achieve the kind of recognition that has historically gone to their male peers.

“By acknowledging the importance of women artists, The Bennett Prize is providing an antidote to what might be going on in the art market and the art world in general,” Nam Greene says. “I encourage emerging women painters to apply for the Bennett Prize. You meet 10 other amazing women artists… the diversity of the different practices will enrich your own art practice, but also your understanding of what realism is.”

The call for entries is open now. Ten finalists will be included in a group exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art in Michigan in spring 2027, where a winner and runner-up will be announced. The runner-up Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt Prize remains at $10,000.

Read more: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/sponsored-content/bennett-prize-raised-award-artists-think-you-should-apply-1234780694/