UK MFA student’s prize-winning work inspired by journey to sobriety, exploration of doubt

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 7, 2025) — Mitchell Burleson, a University of Kentucky graduate student pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in studio art at the School of Art and Visual Studies in the College of Fine Arts, won’t forget where he was when he received a phone call with the life-changing news that he had won a prestigious $50,000 art award.

Burleson and his girlfriend, Hannah, were leaving Churchill Downs on May 3 — Kentucky Derby day.

“We were new to Kentucky and wanted to do all that Kentucky had to offer,” Burleson said.

His girlfriend had purchased tickets to the iconic Thoroughbred race, an anniversary present for the couple. He was joking with her on the way out of the grandstand that he was down $40 from betting on the Derby. Not long after that the phone rang — a South Carolina phone number. Poor reception prevented Burleson from hearing what the person on the other end of the line was saying, so he waited until he and his girlfriend had gotten to the parking lot to call back.

“That was when I learned I’d won the grand prize,” Burleson said.

The prize was the $50,000 Artfields Grand Prize, awarded annually to an artist from one of 12 Southeastern states. Artfields Fine Arts Manager Kyle C. Coleman said the Lake City, South Carolina-based organization received more than 1,000 entries, which a panel narrowed down to 343 in consideration for the top prize.

Burleson’s piece, titled “Oh Lord, I Have My Doubts,” impressed the five-member jury panel enough to earn the $50,000 grand prize.

In his own narrative for the competition, Burleson described the piece as one of a series of works that describe his relationship with organized religion.

In his description of the work on the Artfields website, Burleson wrote that it depicts the gates of heaven backed by a hazed weaving. The inspiration for it originated in his own introspection on religion.

“We think about what actions we’ve done to others throughout our lives and in the Bible it talks about going to the gates of heaven and someone saying, ‘Okay, this is your judgment. You can either go or you have to go back down.’ And, you know, I sat there and I imagined myself at the gates of heaven and…what would they say? And I kind of jokingly, to myself, was like, I would lean over the guy next to me and I would ask, ‘You think you're getting in?’ And when he asked me the same thing, I’d say, ‘Oh, I got my doubts.’”

Burleson is open about discussing his struggle with alcoholism and subsequent recovery. He said he was concerned about the fact that the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings he attended were in a church. His relationship with religion, he said, was complicated.

“I have a lot of respect for religion and for people having faith, but I was at a point in my life where I didn’t know if that was true and if all the things I had learned in my upbringing were true or not,” he said. “And to be honest, I still can’t answer that question for you. But that’s something I’ve made peace with.”

“Oh Lord, I Have My Doubts” was one of a few pieces Burleson was working on when he was early in his sobriety. He finished it in the spring of 2024 when he was one year sober. Now, he hasn’t had a drink in a little more than two years.

Burleson has always been interested in making things, which he described as a lifelong pursuit. He said he would spend time in his father’s woodshop, helping make things like a new leg for a kitchen table or a chess board.

“He taught me to be very careful about following steps,” Burleson said. “I like to be a very regimented person. These days I like to go with the flow, but I still like to have a routine and follow it. That kind of extends both into my personal life and into my professional practice.

“If you're going to do something, you might as well do it right, and to the best of your ability.”

Burleson’s mother ran a wholesale plumbing business, exposing him to materials like steel and cast iron, which have made their way into his art pieces over the years. He said he took his first steps toward being a fiber artist when he was 16.

“I actually started by knitting a girl that I was dating a scarf,” he said. “I had some needles in my craft closet and a ball of yarn, and I looked up some YouTube videos and just got to work. Little did I know that that would spawn a lifelong interest in fiber arts.”

Burleson said the scarf was very much a student work that illustrated his progress in learning to knit.

“It was a 5-foot scarf. The first third was awful. I mean, you couldn’t even tell what it was,” he said. “But then the next little bit, it was getting there. And then the last third was just perfect. I remember it very clearly.

“And that was what kept me going. I saw that there was an upward progression that that I could continue on.”

That upward trajectory led Burleson to UK in Fall 2024. He was drawn to the three-year graduate program at the School of Art and Visual Studies, which he said gives him time to develop as an artist and teacher. He also credits Davis Wischer, an associate professor of art studio, print media and digital media design, as another major draw.

“He had a piece in Artfields and I was living in Charlotte, which is about three hours from Lake City,” Burleson said. “I had met him when I came up here to tour for grad school and he had told me that he was going to be down there and I had never heard of Art Fields and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll trust you and I’ll go check it out.’”

Burleson said his visit to Artfields in the small South Carolina town was inspiring.

“I had never been around anything like that. It’s the most unique festival that you’ve ever been to,” he said. “Not only are you experiencing world class art, but you’re experiencing this quaint Southern town. It’s the quintessential South Carolina town.”

And now Burleson’s own prize-winning work is on exhibit there and he takes his place among the best Southern artists, a distinction he takes seriously.

“I’m really proud of being a Southerner and it’s just nice to be recognized and to talk about what Southerners go through,” he said. “The South has always been a beautiful place, but it’s not always been a pretty place. It’s a very complicated history, and I find with a lot of my work I’m trying to address that complexity; trying to figure out up from down, and what I think in regard to what it means now to be a Southerner.

“The recognition by a group of other Southern artists and people that are looking critically at art is what means the most to me.”