The West Collection has announced the 10 Finalist Winners of the 2011 West Prize. Selected from 2100 international applicants, each artist will be awarded an acquisition grant with their chosen work entering the prestigious West Collection of contemporary art.

The 10 finalists are:
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel (West Chester, PA)
Aurelia Gratzer (Vienna, Austria)
Jordan Griska (Philadelphia, PA)
Billie Grace Lynn (Miami, FL)
Alex Lukas (Philadelphia, PA)
Troy Dugas (Lafayette, LA)
Taro Hattori (Oakland, CA)
Blane De St. Croix (Brooklyn, NY)
Rachel Sussman (Brooklyn, NY)
Michael Beitz (Buffalo, NY)

Later this year in May, the 10 Finalists Exhibition will open to the public at the West Collection at SEI, and during the opening one of the 10 artists will receive the $25,000 Grand Prize for their project proposal. With this initiative, The West Collection seeks to support and exhibit young artists who are creating challenging and inventive work.

Downtown, A Love Story
It's absolutely mutual between Ghislaine Viñas and the owners of this house in TriBeCa

Ghislaine Viñas and Paige West call themselves sisters. These two vivacious women share no DNA, but they connect on every conceivable level, from a madcap sense of humor to a shared passion for color. One recent afternoon, as Viñas dismounted from the orange bicycle that she rides around town and parked in front of the town house she'd designed for West, the pair were delighted to discover they were both sporting Opi's Shrek nail polish, Viñas in green and West in blue. "We're at the stage. . ." the designer begins-before her six-time client interjects ". . .where we finish each other's sentences!"