(See You Later, oil on panel by Allison Leigh Smith, 2016 Annual Juried Exhibit Best in Show)

The Durango Arts Center is pleased to provide a professional juried exhibit for artists working in all media.  In its 41st year, the Annual Juried Exhibit was expanded to a national competition to broaden creative expression, both in and outside of our community; accepted multi-media and installation work; and provided a new online platform for submissions.  The juror of this year’s exhibit, Benjamin Hickey, also provided free onsite portfolio reviews and critique to any artist regardless of their acceptance into the exhibit.

AWARDS

Best in Show: Kayla Shaggy – Hell

2nd Place: Heather Kelley – Tabula Rasa
3rd Place: Barbara Dixon Drewa – The Next Chapter

Honorable Mentions:

Mary Lou Murray – Durango Dusk
Clifford Tresner – End Goals
Allison Leigh Smith – Wrented: A Tribute to Charley
Deborah Sussex – Kenosha Pass. Mile. 78/9,969ft
Rosemary Juskevich – Blue Silo

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

JUROR STATEMENT : BENJAMIN HICKEY

When I jury an exhibition I am careful to treat the process as a singularity. The pool is unique and has to be treated as such. Often times the work is so varied there cannot be a unifying theme or concept that brings it all together. If that is the case, I become the unifying theme. This is an uncomfortable concept for me because, in essence, I am creating a portrait of myself with work presented to me in an arbitrary fashion; by those who choose to enter.  Generally, I feel my job as a curator is to facilitate the ideas of others, but due to the fairly impersonal nature of the jurying process, my perspective drives the exhibition more than it normally does when I am working intimately with an artist or artists. In my mind, the selection process works like this. On the first level I weigh the technical ability of the work I want in the show, and balance that assessment with my sense of whether the selected, or soon to be selected, artists seem to achieve the goals they lay out for their work.

After that, I consider how the work affects me.
If I felt an affinity for a work of art, I accepted it. There is a fair amount of hedonism associated with selecting a juried competition. To deny the pleasure of selecting art for this exhibition would be disingenuous.

By and large the majority of the entries conveyed a sense of place I found moving. Many, but not all, elicited a sense of visiting family in the West during summers growing up. I have family in Colorado, Montana, Washington, and Idaho. There is another biographical strand running through this exhibition. I have a fondness for highly conceptual works of art. Artwork, usually of a highly representational nature, conveying a sense of place paired with fairly abstract, concept heavy art may seem like an unnatural pairing, but they both resonate equally inside me. These two competing ideas create an interesting tension in this exhibition at the Durango Arts Center.

AWARDS

Best of Show:

The overwhelming use of stippling, or layered individual marks used to create value, form, and texture, in Kayla Shaggy’s Hell (italics) gives one a sense of what Hell’s supposedly infinite vastness might be like to behold. Every square inch of Shaggy’s composition tells a story of eternal torment. Guilt, violence, retribution, this is a piercing cautionary tale of human frailty.

Second Place:

Heather Ryan Kelley’s Tabula Rasa (italics) is an interesting meditation on the passage of time. Kelley used chance bumps and spills in the studio over seven years to serve as her Mark making system once she etched the words, “THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LET BLANK.” A great deal can happen, as well as be taken for granted over seven years. I also enjoy the sardonic provocation Kelley’s words represent.

Third Place:

Barbara Drewa’s trompe l’oeil still life, The Next Chapter (italics) is a portrait of an unknown sitter, or perhaps the United States. Familiar objects made elusive bring their symbolic power to the fore. It’s a cumulative effect and possibly a reading assignment.

DAC is grateful for the generous support of our exhibit sponsors who enable culturally innovative programs to exist in our community.  The premier sponsor of the 41st Annual Juried Exhibit is Maynes, Bradford, Shipps & Sheftel LLP.

The 41st Annual Juried Exhibit is made possible by the 2017 exhibits season sponsors: Friends of the Gallery, Mary Lyn and Richard Ballantine, Don and Judy Hayes, Russell Engineering and Oxford Asset Management.