California Community Foundation Selects Art Faculty’s Devon Tsuno for Prestigious Fellowship

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Devon Tsuno — Cypress College’s 2011 Outstanding Adjunct Faculty member — has been honored with a prestigious his selection with a 2014 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts.

The fellowship presents $15,000-20,000 to Los Angeles artists to facilitate their professional development and to help ensure their long-term success in the field. The fellowship was created in 1988 and has awarded more than $2 million to 215 professional artists following an initial investment from the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Tsuno, who is teaching two painting courses in the fall at Cypress College, has been an adjunct faculty member at Cypress College for the past 7 years, teaching art, and previously serving as director of the Art Gallery. While at Cypress College, he forged strong connections with neighboring Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton, and with other community college art students. In 2011, he worked with “Artist in Residence” Kiel Johnson on an ambitious project where students designed and crafted elaborate robot costumes, which were then used for a short film produced on campus.

“As an artist, Devon is a person of exceptional talent and quality. As an instructor, he is passionate and compassionate. And, as a colleague, he is dedicated and will often go above and beyond the call of duty to lend a hand,” Fine Arts Dean Joyce Carrigan said upon his 2011 faculty award selection.

This is how Tsuno described his most-recent work to the CCF:

Most recent experimentation’s have resulted in a series of prints created with a Risograph, a 1990s-era printing system using technology similar to fax machines, screen printing and designed for high-volume photocopying and printing. I am re-purposing this machine to created a series of artist’s books and prints in collaboration other artists, schools and community members. These prints and books are being distributed in the tens of thousands in the greater Los Angeles area to document the Los Angeles watershed and tributaries.

Tsuno has exhibited internationally in Japan, Mexico, Korea, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. His list of notable U.S. exhibitions include the Hammer Museum Venice Beach Biennial, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Torrance Art Museum, Sam Lee Gallery, PØST, Carl Berg Gallery, Monte Vista Projects, Ruth Bachofner Gallery and Summercamp’s ProjectProject. He was the artist in residence at Chloë Flores FB, and Stichting Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and will be attending Art Plant, Denver as an artist in resident in 2014.

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