Artists from Huntington, Morgantown and Wheeling won the top prizes in the West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s 19th West Virginia Juried Exhibition, which opened Sunday, Nov. 8, at TAMARACK: The Best of West Virginia in Beckley.
The exhibit featuring, 119 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, mixed media and crafts created by 95 West Virginia artists, is co-sponsored by the West Virginia Commission on the Arts. The public is invited to view the exhibit from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in November and December and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in January and February. The exhibit will remain on display through Feb. 21.
Ten pieces in the exhibit will be purchased and become part of the West Virginia State Museum’s permanent collection. Jurors John A. Hancock of Waynesboro, VA, and Lenore Thomas of Pittsburgh, PA, selected Huntington artist Hanna Kozlowski-Slone’s In the Limelight, Morgantown resident Alison Helm’s Cyber Clash and Wheeling resident Robert Villamagna’s Captains of Industry as this year’s $5,000 Governor’s Award winners. In the Limelight also received the D. Gene Jordon Memorial Award, which is named for a former chairman of the West Virginia Commission on the Arts who died in 1989.
Artists receiving $2,000 Awards of Excellence include Mark Cline of Caldwell for Cross; Vernon Howell of Barboursville for Under Construction #2; Christine Rhodes of Parkersburg for Balancing Act; Randy Selbe of South Charleston for Tribute to the Lost Incas; Clayton Spangler of Charleston for Farms and Fences; Michael Teel of St. Albans for Friends of Fossilized Carbon; and Larry Weese Jr. of Ravenswood for The Vase Within.
An additional eight Merit Awards of $500 were made that are not purchase awards and do not become part of the museum’s collection. They include Chris Dutch of Charleston for Sacred and Profane; Robert Fisher of Charleston for One Eyed Tookie; Mary Grassell of Hurricane for Vandalia Vantage Point; Charly Jupiter Hamilton of Charleston for Rhoda’s Dirty French Dinner Party; Newman Jackson of Charleston for Sorrow Revealed; William Kubach of Clendenin for Elk River Frost Trees: 1-2-3; Morgan Richards of South Charleston for Ronald Briefcase for Silently Speaking Gratitude Collection; and Christopher M. Schultz of Bridgeport for Jeremy. Many of the works on display are for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition at Tamarack.
From its inception in 1979 until 2005, the West Virginia Juried Exhibition was presented at the Culture Center, State Capitol Complex, Charleston. In 2007, Randall Reid-Smith, commissioner of the WVDCH, decided to have the exhibition travel to the Parkersburg Art Center, sharing the best in art with yet another community in the Mountain State. “One of my goals has been to touch every part of our state with outstanding cultural events. We are delighted to have the opportunity to expand our outreach to the community by placing the West Virginia Juried Exhibition 2015 at Tamarack in Beckley,” he said.
The exhibition was at the Huntington Museum of Art in 2009, the Stifel Fine Arts Center in Wheeling in 2011 and at the Dunn Building in Martinsburg in 2013.
The WV Division of Culture and History proudly presents this biennial event in partnership with the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and with support from the West Virginia Legislature, which appropriates funding for the exhibition’s awards. The $33,000 in award money constitutes one of the largest endowments for a single exhibition in the country.
Area 2015 West Virginia Juried Exhibition Participants
Adrienne Biesemeyer, Alderson, Rain on the Lake, hand-knitted scarf, ribbon, handmade poly-clay beads and pendant
Laurie Cameron, Hillsboro, Stock Sale, Marlinton Photograph and Clover Lick, WV Photograph
Douglas Chadwick, Hillsboro, Greenbrier River, January Photograph
Mark Cline, Caldwell, Cross, oil paint, spray paint on fabric
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE: Marietta Lyall, Lewisburg, So Many Pretty Colors, So Little Time, acrylic on canvas and Is it Spring Yet? acrylic on canvas
John Wesley Williams, Renick, Live Edge Bubinga Console, Bubinga wood, wenge wood 35”x47”x22”, $3,000