As the last juror to review New American Paintings submissions as part of the analog world (is a digital image better than a reproduction that the artist oversees?), the memory of the jurying process is one of being surrounded by hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of file folders and thousands of 8.5 x 11″ sheets of paper, each bearing the image of a single work of art.
I remember thinking that each sheet of paper was both a sacred trust and merely quotidian ephemera; a print-out of a work of art into which the artist had placed their talent, time, current obsessions, and not a small bit of hope – that amongst all the submissions, their’s would stand out and be selected.
Round One…manila folders being lifted out of the several cardboard boxes in which they were shipped. Round Two…”yes”, “no”, “maybe” piles grew like Leaning Towers. A marvelous evening of sitting at my dining room table, “reading” the images as if they were part of a collection of poetry, an Exquisite Corpse of one image building on the next and the one just prior offering counterpoint of challenge to what followed. Round Three…Artists selected for my solid choices; alternates laid out in a 20 square foot area of a floor. Uncertainties gave way to increasing clarity. Individual images coalesced into the winners of the New American Paintings Southern Competition 2009.
Barbara O’Brien
Juror, Edition 88
Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
Filed under: Competitions | Tags: announcement, competition, selected, Toby Kamps, West, winners
We are pleased to announce that the following artists have been selected as winners for the 2010 Western Competition, to be featured in Edition #90 of New American Paintings, juried by Toby Kamps, Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. Look for the West issue to be released in October of 2010. Thanks to everyone that applied!
Mark Aguhar
Jack Balas
Robert Josiah Bingaman
Michael Bise
John Thomas Bissonette
Matthew Bourbon
Mindy Bray
Bernardo Cantu
Gregory M Carter
Jakob Christmas
Joseph Cohen
KC Collins
Erin Cone
Eric Conrad
Matthew Cusic
Philip Denker
Alejandro Diaz
Carlos D. Donjuan
Garland Fielder
Wayne Gilbert
Bethany Gouldin
Allison Gregory
James Hart
Katy Horan
Kevin Kelly
Ted Larsen
Rebecca Layton
Jonathan C. Leach
Erick Maybury
Marcelyn McNeil
Brad Nelson
Matt Root
Howard Sherman
Steven Shores
John Holt Smith
Aaron Storck
Micki Tschur
Rachel Walker
Melissa Wilkinson
Joseph Wooten
Check out some of the latest entries to the Pacific Coast Competition. The deadline is June 30, so keep them coming!
NOTE: The following are random selections, and in no way reflect, or influence, final selections made by the juror.
Gale Antokal, “Dym” | Pastel on Paper, 50 x 38 inches
Lauren Cohen, “Tenderloins” | Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 48 inches
Prajakti Jayavant, “Untitled no. 50” | Acrylic on Paper, 13 x 12 inches
Kelly Reemtsen, “Character Assassination” | Oil on Panel, 41 x 41 inches
Hedwige Jacobs, Aqua, 2010 | marker on board, 9 x 9 inches
Included with every edition of New American Paintings are two Noteworthy artists from the competition–one selected by the edition’s guest juror and another selected by the magazine–an honor in addition to being selected as a winner. New and Noteworthy posts seek to catch up with previous Noteworthy artists and discover what they’ve been up to since they were last included in the magazine.
This week we catch up with Houston-based artist, Hedwige Jacobs (last included in #84 and featured as a Noteworthy artist for #78), who is working towards a show this fall with her gallery in Houston, CTRL.
Filed under: Art World, Sneak Peeks, Spotlight | Tags: Evan J. Garza, Peregrine Honig
Peregrine Honig, Feathered Puke, 2010 | mixed media on paper, 15 x 10.5 inches
Featured a whopping four times in New American Paintings (Editions #29, #41, #53, and #71), Peregrine Honig is no stranger to the spotlight. In fact, her work frequently deals with the idea of celebrity, using popular culture and her gritty surroundings in Kansas City, Missouri as creative fodder.
We recently made plans to interview Honig for a Spotlight feature in Edition #89, and to our surprise we discovered she was selected as a contestant for Bravo’s reality television series, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. The following is an excerpt from her recent conversation with editor-at-large, Evan J. Garza.
Check out some of the latest entries to the Pacific Coast Competition. The deadline is June 30, so keep them coming!
NOTE: The following are random selections, and in no way reflect, or influence, final selections made by the juror.
Catherine Ryan, “The Bedroom” | Acrylic on Paper, 30 x 44 inches
Christina Shurts, “Superstructure” | Oil on Canvas, 75×105 inches
Marika Berlind, “N Dimensions 5″ | Ink on Plexi, 24×18 inches
Gisela Colon, “Induccion Cromatica Azul” | Oil on Panel, 80×45 inches
Jen Stark, Celestial Continuum, 2009 | felt-tip pen on paper, 26 x 40 inches
First featured in Edition 70, and included as the Spotlight artist in the forthcoming Edition 88 of New American Paintings, Miami-based Jen Stark produces some truly exceptional work. Captivated by naturally occurring organic forms, Stark’s kaleidoscopic palette is inspired by the tropical city she calls home, and her numbered art-making practices make incredible use of ordinary materials.
Filed under: By the Book
Selections from Winners: Southern Competition 2009
Juror: Barbara O’Brien, Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
Joshua Bronaugh, “Change is the Disease, Doctor, Both” | oil, motor oil, alkyd on plastic, 36 x 48 inches
Gonzalo Fuenmayor, “Apocalypse I” | charcoal on paper, 83 x 52 inches
Charles W. Goolsby, “Coeburn” | oil on linen, 60 x 84 inches
Chris Scarborough, “Untitled (Orbital Debris)” | graphite and watercolor on paper, 19 x 15 inches
Filed under: Uncategorized
Welcome to the New American Paintings Blog. The past six months have been a time of rapid technological growth and change at our small publishing company. Our readers are now able to manage their accounts on-line for the first time, and, at long last, we have launched a digital system that allows artists to quickly and easily submit work to our competitions. While these innovations allow for more efficient communication with our audience, my hope is that the blog will radically expand the dialog and range of interaction.
Since its inception, the core focus of New American Paintings has been to discover the work of exceptional emerging painters and present them to an international audience. While the publication’s mission will remain the same moving forward, we have recently begun to present new editorial content that expands the publication’s voice. You will find these changes in the pages of New American Paintings, and, in a more immediate way, in this forum.
As the Publisher and Editor of New American Paintings, I have had a unique vantage point from which to watch the evolution of American painting over the past fifteen years. With more than six thousand artists a year submitting their work to us for review, I am privileged to have daily access to an extraordinary range of ideas and aesthetic viewpoints. My editorial team arguably has a better sense of what is currently happening in American painting than any other individual or organization in the world, and we are thrilled to now have an effective medium through which to share our insights with you.
My hope is that this blog becomes a significant forum for the continuing discourse on contemporary painting. To this end, we are developing a number of editorial threads that will allow us to more fully address the medium of painting, the artists and professionals who influence painting’s direction, and the role of painting in an ever-expanding art world. You can expect contributions from a number of art world professionals, in a variety of formats.
We are excited to effectively bring New American Paintings into the digital age. Please stay tuned, and, as always, we value your feedback.
Steven T. Zevitas
