Clifton Childree, winner of the first Annual Hilger Artist Project Award, begins in July his two-month transformation of the Locust Projects artspace for his site-specific installation “DREAM-CUM-TRU.” The exhibition is set to open Saturday, September 13, 2008, 7-11 p.m. and features a live performance by the artist at 8 and 10 p.m.

This is the first year that Austrian-based dealer and private collector Prof. Ernst Hilger has teamed up with Miami’s alternative non-profit space Locust Projects to support emerging artists. Childree was selected for the award out of 32 applicants to receive a $2,000 cash prize and the opportunity to create a seminal work within the artspace.

The first exhibition of Locust Projects’ 10th Anniversary 2008 season, Childree’s installation will take patrons on a journey through the ruins of an old and abandoned adult-themed amusement park once called DREAM-CUM-TRU.

“Nature has scraped away at the glossy paint and decomposed the wooden collapsed structures to release a new texture, an inner life of freaky self-sufficient automata,” said Childree.

A local Miami artist and experimental filmmaker, Childree is best known for his black-and-white vaudeville slapstick horror movies. DREAM-CUM-TRU, a singular world of burnt-out roller coasters and sadistic arcade games will bring the irreverent hallucinatory spirit of his films to life.