So, get this. The Burlington City Arts just gave this artist from Winooski, Corrine Yonce, the 2025 Diane Gabriel Visual Artist Award. It comes with a cool $5,000 cash prize and $1,000 to spend on classes at BCA Studios. Yonce, who is 34 years old, does all kinds of art stuff like drawing, painting, and installations. She’s not just an artist though. She’s also big on housing advocacy and community support at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.
Yonce’s project “Voices of Home,” which she started in 2015 with Vermont Folklife, is now up at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington. This project brings together audio stories from folks living in affordable housing communities along with painted portraits of them. Talk about mixing mediums, right?
If you wanna see more of Yonce’s work, you can check it out at Soapbox Arts in Burlington or K. Grant Fine Art in Vergennes. Her paintings are vibrant, colorful, and full of life with all kinds of materials like metal grates, pillow stuffing, resin, cardboard, and other random objects thrown in.
Last summer, Yonce and another artist, Mary Lacy from Jericho, put up a mosaic mural at Pliny Park in Brattleboro. They even had community members bring in stuff that meant something to them to smash and include in the mural. Sounds like a wild party, right? The state even helped out with a grant to match funds raised by the community and Epsilon Spires.
Two years back, Yonce put up some sculptural paintings at King Street Laundry as part of a makeover for the place. She even helped connect the business and its customers with services through her work at CVOEO. Talk about multitasking!
Yonce is all about exploring the idea of “home” in her work. She loves the freedom and creativity that painting offers. According to her, it’s all about the subtle details that make painting so special. She’s gearing up for a solo show at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H., opening in August. The cash prize will definitely help her get everything ready for the big event.
She’s super grateful to BCA for the award, especially since it’s been about a decade since she first started working with them. It’s been quite the journey, and this award is like the icing on the cake for her.
So, there you have it. Corrine Yonce, the artist extraordinaire from Winooski, making waves in the art world and beyond. Who knows what she’ll do next? Not really sure why this matters, but it’s pretty cool, right?
