$25,000 Unrestricted Prize Celebrates Artists Who Have Strengthened Their Community Through Artistic Endeavors
MIAMI (January 11, 2024) — Rachel Zhang has been named the 2025 YoungArts Jorge M. Pérez Award winner. Zhang, a visual artist working in the mediums of painting and drawing, and a 2015 and 2016 YoungArts award winner in Visual Arts, will receive an unrestricted prize of $25,000.
“YoungArts is deeply grateful to The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation for their continued partnership and recognition of talented artists like Rachel, whose work presents powerful symbolic takes on genre paintings from the perspective of an Asian American Female,” said Clive Chang, President and CEO of YoungArts. “This award is an important example of how our work at YoungArts is supercharged by the support of incredible partners like Jorge and his family.”
“As the art world faces growing financial and societal pressures, my family and I are honored to champion emerging talents like Rachel,” said Jorge M. Pérez, internationally renowned philanthropist and founder of the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation. “Their creative aspirations and personal expression are vital in shaping a more dynamic and inclusive society, serving as a universal language that bridges cultures and brings people together in ways few other mediums can. We are thankful for YoungArts’ dedication to nurturing young artists and ensuring they have the platform and resources to thrive.”
Through figurative narrative scenes, Zhang’s work explores the absurdities and existential anxieties of personal autonomy and social roles in a capitalist society, especially those of gendered bodies. Zhang’s imagery is informed by a variety of sources, including satirical and dystopian fiction stories, absurdist theater and literature, social psychology, research on conformity and obedience to authority, and religious allegories. Her perspective on society as an Asian American female is demonstrated through her works that explore lineages of personal histories as they relate to current events at the intersections of US and Asian American histories, particularly family narratives during 20th-century China and histories of women’s roles throughout time.
Zhang was awarded the Recharge New Surrealist Prize from NYFA in 2024. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Pietro and Alfrieda Montana Memorial Prize for Drawing. Her work has been exhibited at Saatchi Yates, London, Fragment Gallery, New York, Saatchi Gallery, London, and Bellefonte Museum of Art, PA. She completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, where she was awarded the Zeta Orionis Fellowship. Zhang’s work is included in the public collection at the Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art in Wales, UK.
“I am incredibly grateful for the support shown by YoungArts and the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation with this award,” said Rachel Zhang. “The award is so meaningful to me in helping to further the development of my work and open up new possibilities within my practice. I am honored and motivated by this belief in my work, and with this support I will continue to focus on creating narratives that reflect on the complexities of today’s world, while connecting with different communities.”
Established in 2018, and one of YoungArts’ largest financial awards, the Jorge M. Pérez Award honors a YoungArts Visual Arts award winner who has succeeded in strengthening their community through artistic endeavors. Applicants aged 25 and over are invited to submit materials through an open call on YoungArts Post. Selections are made by the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation. Recent recipients include Diana Eusebio (2016 Visual Arts Winner & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts), Cornelius Tulloch (2016 Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts), Juan Jose Cielo (2015 Visual Arts), Malaika Temba (2014 Visual Arts), Ilana Harris-Babou (2009 Visual Arts) and Mateo Nava (2013 Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts).
About The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation
The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation fulfills the philanthropic vision of Jorge M. Pérez, Chairman and CEO of The Related Group, and his family to develop South Florida as an exemplary world-class urban center. The Family Foundation promotes sustainable, inclusive and just communities by supporting programs and organizations focused on arts and culture, health and well-being, education, environment and economic development – with a particular preference for programs and organizations that could serve as models for other urban centers. In the first 10 years since its inception, the Family Foundation has committed $135 million in support of nearly 150 non-profit organizations. For more information, please visit www.jmperezfamilyfoundation.org.
About YoungArts
YoungArts was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify exceptional young artists, amplify their potential, and invest in their lifelong creative freedom. YoungArts provides space, funding, mentorship, professional development and community throughout artists’ careers. Entrance into this prestigious organization starts with a highly competitive application for talented artists ages 15–18, or grades 10–12, in the United States that is judged by esteemed discipline-specific panels of artists through a rigorous blind adjudication process.
For more information, visit youngarts.org, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok.
