Balentine Announces Winner of Inaugural Balentine Prize at 2025 Atlanta Art Fair

Atlanta Native and Nashville-based Artist Caroline Allison Recognized for Book of Hours (Nones)

ATLANTA, GA, UNITED STATES, September 26, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Balentine, an Atlanta-based boutique wealth management firm, established the Balentine Prize this year in conjunction with its sponsorship of the Atlanta Art Fair. The Balentine Prize recognizes an emerging artist from Atlanta or the Greater American South who demonstrates exceptional promise in their work, and aims to support and elevate the artist’s creative practice while also promoting the evolution of the contemporary art scene in the South.

Balentine and the Atlanta Art Fair are pleased to announce that artist Caroline Allison of Nashville, Tenn., was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Balentine Prize for her piece, Book of Hours (Nones). Allison was selected by a jury composed of Mark Bell, Ph.D. a partner at Balentine, Atlanta Art Fair Artistic Director Nato Thompson, and independent curator Lauren Jackson Harris.

The work is a unique, hand-shaped, wall-relief photograph that measures 30” x 40” x 4” and is the newest piece from Allison’s recent series of Southern skyscapes. Taking inspiration from a medieval Book of Hours, the works feature images of cumulus clouds that evoke meditations, incantations, and prayers to the reliably changeable skies of the South. This specific piece from the collection takes its name from the Latin for the time of day that this image was captured – 3 pm. After printing the image, Allison wet and physically manipulated the print into a new permanent shape, transforming the flat print into a wavy wall relief echoing its billowing subject. Critic Laura Hutson writes that the work “challenges the formal boundaries that separate painting, photography and sculpture.”

“The Book of Hours, as a title for the collection, conjures up the medieval devotional discipline of contemplation and prayer,” said Mark Bell, Ph.D. “The work itself encourages interactive contemplation by breaking the two dimensional plane of the traditional canvas. We could not be more excited for Caroline to be the first recipient of the Balentine Prize.”

Balentine has acquired the Book of Hours (Nones) for its corporate art collection.

About Caroline Allison
A native Atlantan, Allison is a 2022 recipient of the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission and a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished Fellowship through Hambidge Center. Her photographs have been included in exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including ZieherSmith (Nashville), David Lusk Gallery (Nashville), Howard Greenberg Gallery (NYC), Chicago Cultural Center, Daniel Cooney Fine Art (NYC), the Bronx Museum of Art, Lehmann Maupin (NYC), Momentum Gallery (Berlin), the University of Tennessee, and the University of the South.

Allison received her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1999 and her B.A. from The University of the South, 1994. Allison’s nominating gallery was ZieherSmith of Nashville, a contemporary art gallery established in 2003 in New York City’s Chelsea art district by Scott Zieher and Andrea Smith Zieher. The gallery is now located in Nashville’s Edgehill neighborhood and has placed work in some of the world’s top museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About Balentine
Balentine provides entrepreneurs and their families with conflict-free advice and sophisticated wealth management solutions that provide peace of mind. As a majority employee-owned firm with offices in Atlanta, Ga., and Raleigh, N.C., Balentine advises on approximately $8.5 billion of client assets and has repeatedly been recognized as a top financial planning and advisory firm by publications including Forbes, Barrons, The Financial Times, and Investment News. Balentine is also a perennial winner of the Pensions & Investments Best Places to Work in Money Management Award. In September 2021, Chairman Robert Balentine and CEO Adrian Cronje, Ph.D., CFA released First Generation Wealth, a book to help wealth creators think through what it takes to build a meaningful legacy and best support future generations.

LIsa Lilienthal
Balentine
+1 404-661-3679
lisa@lisaclilienthal.com
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