The Dorothy Antoinette LaSelle Foundation has announced the winners of its annual travel fellowships. The 2025 awardees are Brownville and Houston artist Tina Hernandez and Houston artist Trevon Latin.
The program awards two Texas artists $5,000 to support overseas travel related to their artistic practice. Ms. Hernandez will visit Vienna, Austria, to study Gustav Klimt’s Stoclet Frieze and Mesoamerican artifacts housed at the Weltmuseum Wien. Mr. Latin will travel to Japan to study the Kiyomizudera water temple in Kyoto and the Yokai Art Museum in Tonosho.
Hannah Klemm, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, served as juror for the 2025 fellowships open call. In a press release, Ms. Klemm said she appreciated Mr. Latin’s plan to engage with Japan’s architectural and mythological traditions in a way that could only be accomplished through travel.
Detail view of Tina Hernandez, “Cafecito con Pan,” 2023
“The way … he would use the travel to immerse himself in spaces that balance serenity and play, transcendence and materiality, would expand his vocabulary for constructing works that hold both intimacy and monumentality. The proposed travel aligns beautifully with the fellowship’s intent to support transformative journeys that catalyze artistic growth,” she said.
Of Ms. Hernandez’s plan to visit Austria, Ms. Klemm said “getting to see works of art in Vienna will deepen her formal vocabulary while advancing her exploration of Chicana identity within a global art-historical dialogue.”
The LaSelle Travel Fellowship program was launched in 2024, in honor of Texas Modernist painter Dorothy Antoinette “Toni” LaSelle’s foundational learning experiences during a 1927-28 European trip taken after completing her MA at the University of Chicago. She explored the art of England, Italy, and France during her travels, made possible through being awarded a study fund for artists whose work was included in a student art exhibition at the Renaissance Society.
Fellowship applicants are required to hold either a BA or BFA and to have participated in at least three group or solo exhibitions in the past three years.
Mr. Latin holds a BFA in Painting from the University of Houston (UH) and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Perrotin gallery in New York City in 2023 and 2021. He has shown in group exhibitions at Perrotin, Anat Egbi in Los Angeles, and Luce Gallery in Torino, Italy.
Trevon Latin, “Thumbsucker,” 2023
Ms. Hernandez received her BFA in Photography/Digital Media from UH in 2003 and currently studies at the UH Graduate College of Social Work. Her first solo show was in 2020 at M.E.C.A in Houston. Venues that have included her work in recent group exhibitions are the Guess Lawson Collection in Houston and the Arizona State University Art Museum in Tempe. She is also a recipient of the Support for Artists and Creative Individuals Grant from Houston Arts Alliance and the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
Learn more about Toni LaSelle and the annual travel fellowships program at the LaSelle Foundation website.
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