Of these, 235 made it into the jury’s selection process. Among them was Tampa artist Nneka Jones, whose “Harmonious Conjunction,” a portrait of two women in thread and paint, won the $6,500 GFA Founder’s Award.
Festival Awards Juror Tiffany Williams, Curator of the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, announced the top prize winners at an artist party Saturday night.
“When I saw your work, it stayed on my mind throughout the festival,” Williams told Jones when she came up to accept the award. “And I know it caught the eye of several other jurors as well.”
Jones made her first GFA appearance in 2019 as an emerging artist while still an art student at The University of Tampa, where she developed her signature style while taking an experimental painting class. Her professor challenged students to paint with materials other than paint, and Jones chose embroidery thread. The decision marked a turning point in the young artist’s career, whose embroidered portraits soon attracted the attention of Time Magazine Art Director Victor Williams.
Williams found Jones on Instagram and commissioned her to hand embroider the American flag for the cover of the publication’s Aug. 31–Sept. 7, 2020 issue, “The New American Revolution: Visions of a Black Future that Fulfill a Nation’s Promise.
This year’s Founder’s Award marks the fourth GFA win for Jones, who took home the Roddy Brownlee Reed Award of Artistic Excellence in 2020, the Board of Directors award in 2021 and Best of Show in 2022.
View all the 2025 GFA award winners via gasparillaarts.com. Watch Jones make “Harmonious Conjunction” via @artyouhungry on Instagram.
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This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2025.