UW–Madison graduate student Carly “Car” Riegger has been honored with a 2024 Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities from Arts Midwest.
Nine artists from throughout the Midwestern region were selected for this award from over 300 applicants by a panel of seven reviewers. The awardees will receive $3,000 each celebrating their exceptional work and recognizing their creativity and dedication.
Riegger, an MFA candidate in the School of Education’s Art Department, is a ceramics artist whose work is a direct response to life with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), an inherited disorder that causes pain in the connective tissues throughout the body.
“My experience is grounded in many hospitals stays, surgeries, and being constantly unsure of the cause of pain in my body,” Riegger writes in an artist’s statement on the Arts Midwest website. “My work documents, preserves, and expresses my inner turmoil and disability, as it is not always visible to others.”
Read more about Riegger and the other 2024 awardees.