Next Level Awards

The 3Arts Next Level Awards offer our past award recipients the opportunity to receive second awards at a higher level, reflecting our organization's belief that one-time investments are not always enough for artists to build lasting momentum, and that they thrive with continued support at critical junctures as their practices and careers evolve.

In 2023, the Next Level program expanded to provide five $50,000 awards to artists working in the following categories:

  • Next Level Teaching Arts Awards: With inaugural support from Good Chaos, 3Arts honors two teaching artists. In 2023, these awards were open to artists in the Chicago metropolitan region who had received a past 3Arts Award in Teaching Arts or a 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency and whose practice is in teaching arts.
  • Next Level Visual Arts Awards: With support from an Anonymous Donor at the Chicago Community Foundation, 3Arts honors three women visual artists. In 2023, these awards were open to women visual artists in the Chicago metropolitan region who had received a past 3Arts Award, a Make a Wave Award in 2017, or a 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency.

Profiles of Next Level Award recipients are accessible further below on this page, or download an awardee list in PDF here.

Selection Process

3Arts artists who meet the category and eligibility requirements above are invited to submit an online application. A panel of three distinguished jurors for each award category convene to review the applications and select the recipients. Recipients are artists who are actively making distinctive and compelling work; have plans to advance their next creative leap and/or project; and are at a critical juncture when an award of this size and nature could have a significant impact. 

Meet the jury panel for the 2023 3Arts Next Level Teaching Arts Awards. 
Meet the jury panel for the 2023 3Arts Next Level Visual Arts Awards. 

 

2023

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    Miguel "Kane One" Aguilar

     Teaching Artist Siragusa Foundation Awardee

    Artist, educator, and researcher Miguel "Kane One" Aguilar has been painting graffiti in Chicago since 1989. He founded Graffiti Institute in 2012, and in 2013 curated "Outside In: The Mexican-American Street Art Movement in Chicago" at the National Museum of …

  • An image of Dianna Frid sitting on a chair in front of two works in progress that are only seen partially. A ladder is next to her. She is smiling softly and looking at the camera. She is also barefoot, but this is not visible because the image is cropped

    Dianna Frid

     Visual Artist Chandler Family Awardee

    Dianna Frid was born in Mexico City. As a teenager, Frid immigrated with her parents and siblings to Vancouver, Canada. Based in Chicago since 2000, Frid has exhibited her work in the USA, Mexico, Canada, and abroad. Her work is …

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    Regin Igloria

     Teaching Artist

    Regin Igloria is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and arts administrator based in North Chicago. His drawings, artists’ books, sculptures, and performances portray the human condition as it relates to the natural environment and inhabited spaces. He has several years of …

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    Edra Soto

     Visual Artist Make a Wave Artist

    Edra Soto is a Puerto-Rican born artist, curator, educator, and co-director of the outdoor project space, The Franklin. Soto instigates meaningful, relevant, and often difficult conversations surrounding socioeconomic and cultural oppression, erasure of history, and loss of cultural knowledge. Growing …

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    Dorian Sylvain

     Visual Artist Southwest Airlines Community Awardee

    Dorian Sylvain is a painter whose color and texture explore ornamentation, pattern, and design as identifiers of cultural and historical foundations. She is a studio painter and muralist, as well as an art educator, curator, and community planner. Much of …

2023 Judges

Visual Arts
Julie Rodrigues
Eugenie Tsai
Folayemi Wilson
Teaching Arts
Charles Grode
Jordan LaSalle
Jill LeCesne Potter

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