Following the success of 2023’s 100th Spring Show, the Erie Art Museum and PennWest’s Art Department will once again partner to promote and award local artists for their work.

Edinboro’s art community and the Erie region are invited to the Nicole & Harry Martin Spring Show – which runs from March 15 through Aug. 9.

This year, Tanya Aguiñiga – a binational award-winning artist, designer and craftsperson – was selected as the official juror for the show.

Aguiñiga is scheduled to present at the Erie Art Museum and Edinboro’s campus during March. She will be meeting with students on Wednesday, March 13, and Thursday, March 14 – with a keynote lecture at 6 p.m., March 13, in the Dr. William P. Alexander Music Center’s recital hall.

Aguiñiga’s jurying and visit are part of the 25-year partnership between the Erie Art Museum and Edinboro’s Visiting Artist and Speaker Endowment (VASE) committee, which aims to identify and host an art professional to jury the museum’s annual show.

Born in 1978 in San Diegoand raised in Tijuana, Mexico, Aguiñiga is an artist, designer and craftsperson. She works with traditional craft materials like natural fibers and collaborates with other artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances and community-based art projects.

Drawing on her upbringing as a binational citizen, who daily crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego for school, Aguiñiga creates work that speaks of the artist’s experience of her divided identity and aspires to tell the larger and often invisible stories of the transnational community.

Aguiñiga began her career with the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo – an artist collective that addressed political and human rights issues at the U.S.-Mexico border. She created AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides), an ongoing series of projects that provides a platform for binational artists.

After earning her bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University, Aguiñiga earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design. She received a fellowship from the United States Artists Target in the field of crafts and traditional arts, an award from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and a grant from Creative Capital.

Additionally, the Los Angeles native has showcased her major solo exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Museum of Arts and Design, in New York City and the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.

Erie Art Museum’s Spring Show is open to all artists who live, work or study within 250 miles of the City of Erie – including Canada. A total of $15,000 in cash prizes and sales is expected and will be determined by Aguiñiga as the juror.

According to the prospectus from the Erie Art Museum, the Spring Show is open to all media, including but not limited to painting, photography, graphics, sculpture and fiber.

For more information about the Nicole & Harry Martin Spring Show, visit erieartmuseum.org.