New American Paintings/Blog


New American Paintings West Deadline by New American Paintings
April 25, 2012, 10:12 am
Filed under: Competitions, NAP News | Tags: , , , , ,

We are nearing the deadline for our West competition which is April 30th, Midnight (EST). So, if you reside in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming, now is your chance to apply to New American Paintings. We are excited to have Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, as our 2012 juror.

So, what are you waiting for? The last few minutes of April to Apply? PLEASE DON’T (our technical support people thank you)!!! It’s easy to submit work, you just need 4 images, 1200 pixels at their greatest dimension or less, and a credit card for our submission fee. Go here and apply now if you live in AZ, CO, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NV, OK, SD, TX, UT, or WY!

As always, you can learn a little more about the competition on our website.  Or, check out our FAQs.

GOOD LUCK!



Top 10 NAP Posts of 2011 by New American Paintings

Even though we are looking forward to 2012, it’s still fun to look back. We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our blog contributors for making our site a great place to find commentary on relevant contemporary painting. These very talented writers and videographers from all over the country include Ellen Caldwell, Brian Fee, Josh Reames, Erin Langner, Nadiah Fellah, Graham Kolbeins (Future Shipwreck), Hallie Miller, Catherine Wagley, Paul Boshears, Joey Veltkamp, Alex Ebstein, and Matthew Smith.

On that note, after the jump we list the top 10 most viewed posts by our contributors in 2011. If you haven’t had a chance to read them, please check them out now! And, it’s never too late to comment.


story-telling booth in Oakland at which participants were invited to share their ‘99% Story’

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Pacific Coast Issue #97 Sneak Peak! by New American Paintings

The 2011 Pacific Coast Issue, #97, is now hitting newsstands across the US. It is expected to ship to subscribers in the next 1 to 2 weeks, so keep an eye out. The juror for this much-anticipated issue was Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

In her essay, Ellegood notes that, “Painting is a surface for imagination. This is abundantly evident in the submissions I reviewed for this edition of New American Paintings. While the works presented in the following pages are notably eclectic, one striking correspondence among the artists is their belief that painting can offer us insights into our world…” — View a list of all featured artists and see a few more sneak peaks after the jump!

You can pre-order the issue by calling 617-778-5265. 

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Goodbye Fortin. by openstudiospress
October 28, 2011, 10:30 am
Filed under: NAP News, Staff

It is a sad day today at the New American Paintings office as our Operations Manager, Jessica Fortin, is leaving the company. During her 5+ years of employment with us, Jess worked her way up from an intern, to a jack-of-all trades assistant to every member of the company. Her ability to juggle multiple projects, produce the funniest sneeze we’ve ever heard, and keep the entire office laughing will be missed. We wish her well as she moves on to a new and exciting chapter in her career.

Best Wishes Fortin!



West Issue #96 Sneak Peak! by New American Paintings

Today we received advanced copies of #96, the 2011 West Issue of New American Paintings! It is expected to hit newsstands and ship to subscribers in the next 1 to 2 weeks, so keep an eye out. It will be hard to miss the cover of this one…The juror for this fantastic issue was Cassandra Coblentz, Curator, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA).

Coblentz states in her introduction that, “the artists represented in these pages demonstrate the vitality of artistic practice in this region of the country. Boldly building upon the richness of art history, their demonstrations of reinvention and innovation are in step with the mythos of the landscape itself, which continues to serve as an important backdrop for exploring the most pressing issues and concerns we all face in the West.” — View a list of all featured artists and see a few more sneak peaks after the jump!

You can pre-order the issue by calling 617-778-5265. 

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Northeast Competition Deadline by New American Paintings

It’s summer, and time once again to apply to our Northeast Competition if you are an artist residing CT, DE, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, & VT. The deadline is Wednesday, August 31 (Midnight EST)! Apply online!

Dina Deitsch, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Musuem, will be jurying what has become one of our most competitive regions.

Artists can now apply online! Simply visit our competition page and follow the instructions. Submitting is easy! Just have four jpegs, less than 1200 pixels at their greatest dimension, and a credit card for the entry fee. Get online and enter by August 31st!

Be sure to check out our recent Q&A with Ms. Deitsch.



Pacific Coast Juror: Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles by openstudiospress

Only ten days are left for artists to apply to our Pacific Coast Competition 2011, which is open through Thursday June 30! (Apply online if you’re an artist in AK, CA, HI, OR, or WA.) We’re thrilled to feature the incredible expertise of L.A.’s Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator at the Hammer Museum, as the juror for the Pacific Coast Competition, one of our most sought-after issues of the year.

I recently caught up with the Los Angeles curator to find out more about her role at the Hammer, her thoughts on living and working in L.A., and her fondness for emerging artists. More of our Q&A after the jump! 

EJG: The Hammer has long had one of the most significant contemporary art programs in Los Angeles. What’s the most exciting thing about what you do at the museum?
AE: There is so much that is exciting at the Hammer, that’s it’s difficult to answer this question. I oversee our Hammer Projects series and also organize a lot of the Hammer Projects shows. We do anywhere from 8-10 of these single-gallery exhibitions a year in different spaces around the museum. The majority of our Hammer Projects focus on a single artist. The shows are tightly curated and usually present new work and are oftentimes the artist’s first museum show. We always have a Hammer Project on and around our large lobby wall, and these projects are particularly challenging and invigorating because they are commissioned new works and oftentimes the artist is pushing and stretching their work in new directions to fill what is a difficult but wonderful space. It’s rewarding to get to be a part of that process.

What role have emerging artists had in your time at the Hammer and in your career?
We are very committed to supporting the work of emerging artists at the Hammer. Los Angeles is a city filled with young artists, many of whom come to L.A. to go to one of the many fantastic art schools and then continue to live in the city. Our Hammer Projects series focuses primarily on emerging artists, and we have had a series of bi-annual exhibitions we call our Invitational that has always included emerging artists (the sixth one, which Douglas Fogle and I organized, was called All of this and nothing and just closed at the end of April). We have also just decided to do a survey of emerging and overlooked artists living in L.A. We are co-organizing this show with LA><ART and it will take place next summer.

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#94: Southern Competition, Juror: Dan Cameron, Now on Newsstands by openstudiospress

Cover: Marcus Jansen

For the 2011 edition of the Southern Competition, we’re thrilled to feature the curatorial expertise of Dan Cameron, the founder and director of Prospect New Orleans, a post-Katrina effort that is single-handedly changing the landscape of contemporary art in the Southern United States. As the man behind the largest international biennial of contemporary art in America, Cameron’s experience working with emerging artists dates back several years, and New American Paintings is proud to exhibit his perspective as this issue’s juror.

The Spotlight feature for #94 focuses on the work of Knoxville, Tennessee’s Jered Sprecher, whose optically charged abstractions have more in common with representational forms than they reveal at first glance. The winner of a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Sprecher is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a wily investigator of commonplace mark-making. Sprecher speaks with us about abstraction, Dollywood, and where you go looking for inspiration in the cornfields of Nebraska.

No conversation about contemporary work in the South would be complete without talking about Miami, and OHWOW’s Lydia Ruby speaks to us about the risk-taking sensibilities of the South Florida art capital, her move from Boston, and her experiences in the art world working with emerging artists.

With American institutions like The Whitney increasingly acquiring work from artists in the South, it’s clear that the region is more vital than ever before, and New American Paintings is excited to be a stalwart site for this growing conversation. Order your copy online! A full list of winners, and preview images, after the jump!

Evan J. Garza, Editor-at-Large

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NAP Discussion Forum by New American Paintings
February 4, 2011, 12:06 pm
Filed under: NAP News | Tags:

We’ve recently added a new discussion forum to NewAmericanPaintings.com. We hope that this will be a useful resource for both artists and subscribers. On the forum, artists can discuss competition deadlines and image requirements, subscribers can ask general questions about subscriptions and renewals, and we have a section called Suggestions and Feedback, where everyone is invited to help us make New American Paintings an even better publication.

The forum will be loosely moderated by New American Paintings staff so please post responsibly!



From the Publisher: Steven Zevitas by openstudiospress
January 20, 2011, 11:36 am
Filed under: NAP News | Tags:

For those of us heavily invested in that thing we call the “art world” – from artists to the legions of individuals who, in various ways, support the efforts of artists – it is sometimes difficult to remember that our “world” occupies a tiny, if vital, space within a universe of other concerns. The past few years have been a particularly challenging time for all of us, yet, towards the end of 2010, things felt as if they might be improving, if not in tangible ways, then in a sense that the sword hanging above us may now be tethered by a rope and not a hair.

2010 was a year of editorial expansion and technological advancement at New American Paintings. Early in the year, we FINALLY launched a custom-built web site that offers artists interested in applying to our competitions an easy way to do so. In June, we launched New American Paintings/Blog, which has greatly expanded our ability to connect with our audience and to offer new types of content, including video.

While change is afoot, the core of what we do at New American Paintings – providing a high-quality, printed exposure vehicle for the work of emerging artists – continues to be our central mission. Our focus on artists not yet sanctioned by the art world’s inner circle makes New American Paintings wholly unique among art publications. As I have stated before, our magazine is about talent, not names, which means that any painter has the opportunity to reach our international audience, regardless of educational pedigree, gallery affiliation, or exhibition history.

We are privileged that thousands of emerging artists trust us with their work every year by entering our competitions. I cannot stress to you how honored we are to have this responsibility, and how seriously we take it. To the artists who applied in 2010, thank you for making last year the most exciting, and competitive, that we have ever had.

In order to keep improving New American Paintings and our other products, it is vital that we get feedback from our readers. I invite you to post comments on the blog, or feel free to contact me directly, to tell me what we are doing right and, more importantly, what we can do better.

I want to wish all of you a happy and successful 2011.

Steven Zevitas
Publisher and Editor