Great Rivers Biennial

The Great Rivers Biennial Art Award (GRB) recognizes and fosters artistic talent in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. The artists selected receive $20,000 in unrestricted funding and are featured in the Great Rivers Biennial exhibition every two years at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Since 2003, the GRB has recognized the standout creative voices of 33 local artists in our region.

For the 2024 Great Rivers Biennial, artists Saj Issa, Basil Kincaid and Ronald Young have proposed exhibitions that involve ceramics, paintings, video, textiles and sculptural assemblage.

Saj Issa, a Palestinian-American artist who draws on her experience living between St. Louis and Ramallah, creates paintings, sculptures, ceramics and video to consider the Palestinian landscape through environmental, historical and contemporary lenses. Issa’s body of work reflects changing notions of belonging and a sense of home while honoring Palestine’s culture and flora.

Basil Kincaid, known for his massive patchwork quilts that unite vibrant compositions with elaborate embroidery, appliqué and beading, incorporates fabrics gifted to him by friends and family with textiles sourced in St. Louis and Ghana. This exhibition also features Kincaid’s abstract works, which pay homage to unsung quilters of Arkansas and Alabama and influences such as Paul Klee and Color Field painting.

Ronald Young celebrates the hard-won beauty of uninhabited sites throughout St. Louis. Through his work, he elevates salvaged materials, including weathered domestic hardware, nails and disintegrating wooden molding, into compelling, multilayered sculptures. Young celebrates the resiliency of disenfranchised communities, calling attention to these sites before all memory of their existence is erased.