2022 INNOVATIONS
Read More
Max and Gracie Founders Award-Best in Show Jean Pederson I’ve been integrating the ideas of time and movement from quantum mechanics into my practice. Transforming realism into distorted or shifting shapes offers my mixed media a new fresh approach. "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Max Planck Mixed media 30" x 30" x 2" $4,500.00
Second Place Award Doris Charest I have often found unexpected bits of nature blown into my garden by the wind. This debris of broken bird eggs, bits of plants, or insects inspired a new idea. Combining them with the Japanese concept of kintsugi (repairing and repurposing broken objects by painting the imperfections with gold to make them precious again), I developed my sculptural piece, "Garden Treasures." The sculpture consists of three white wooden containers with broken eggshells filled with objects. Each egg contains a small, unnoticed element from my garden. Kintsugi is also a metaphor for embracing imperfections in life. Each imperfect element is now singled out and precious but still part of a whole. Since I am known as a painter, this piece (being sculptural) is an experiment. Garden elements have often been subject matter for my paintings, so the topic is not new. However, the approach is different. The result is, like my paintings, special moments captured forever. Wood, resin, egg shells, acrylic, nature 5" x 18" x 14" $850.00
Third Place Award Irina Portnyagina, Steven Purtee, Laurie Schrader, Deborah Forbes, Sally Hope, and David Banner This piece was done using a variation of Exquisite Corpse. After dividing the image into sections, each section was randomly assigned to a different artist. Each artist worked independently from the others with no knowledge of what the full image was or what other artists were doing. They were encouraged to try new materials and new techniques, therefore being experimental and unpredictable in the outcome. The artists involved were Irina Portnyagina, Steven Purtee, Laurie Schrader, Deborah Forbes, Sally Hope, and David Banner. mixed medium 24" x 26" x 1" $3800.00
Fourth Place Award Ed Labadie Exploring new creative dimensions through collage, I selected two paintings of similar themes and then bravely cut and wove them into a new composite work. Although the subject matter is fractured, the mind stubbornly filters and contemplates. The joy is in offering works where the viewer considers two related narratives and then discovers their relevance. I enjoy the challenge of dexterity to fuse representational images and the process of repurposing works into fragmented, kaleidoscopic abstract shapes to create entirely original, imaginative works — a risk-reward excursion I’m willing to take. Watercolor weave 27" x 20" x 1" $1,675.00
Juror Award Paul Gravett Starting with 1000+ year-old photographs of anonymous subjects, I explore the intersection of photography and contemporary art to create evocative, painterly likenesses of personality and mood. Emerging through the thick veil of time, the reappearance of the sitter is the survival of memory. Photography - Archival ink, paper, frame, acrylic 12" x 8" x .1" $350.00
ISAP Award Rick Rogers, Pam Baergen In the early months of the pandemic, works in this series helped the two of us face uncertainty and restrictions together as artists. The freedom granted by experimentation allowed us to combine media and subjects we'd never tried before, drawing on each other's strengths, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable at the same time. Through this series we processed the strange new reality of 2020. And we weren't the only people turning to art, both to cope with and to make sense of it all. This work speaks to how important the act of creating is, even in difficult and surprising times, a new subject for both of us, but so personally relevant. This work integrates our styles and media. We relied on each other's skills and experience alternately, passing the works back and forth. A whimsical allusion to the capacity of humans to adapt, to the value of community, to the importance of creating, and to the luxury of time, this image was an exhilarating and rewarding collaborative experience! Mixed media 36" x 24" x 1.5" $1,300.00
Merit Award Brigitte Amarger This series was made from left over textile colour tests that I had used in a previous installation that questioned the second life of materials, thus giving them a new breath of life. Here I challenged myself to use everything left with the goal of zero waste. The contrast of texture and colour between the front and back of the fabric reminded me of skin and muscle fibres. I decided to transform this anatomy. My studio is always a research laboratory and experiments follow one another. Like a surgeon, I cut, dissected, assembled, and stitched the bits together. As the pieces were made out of scraps of fabrics and threads , it gave me the desire to create new patterns and colour palettes. It was an adventure for me as I am not a seamstress! I navigated between old and new and memory and rebirth. I laser engraved the textile photos onto x-rays and kept traces of the initial fabric, in transparency, by associating its front and back. In the end, emerged textile tattoos in the flesh, on the surface, and imprints in the body in depth. Laser engraved X-rays and discarded fabrics sewn, threads. 35"x25"x0.3" $3900
Merit Award Karen Bishop I wanted to express the horror and confusion of the Australian wildfires, but I also wanted to create something beautiful and hopeful. I used a technique I had tried a few times before but took it even further than before using 3 colours squeezed directly onto the yupo. I then let the pigments mix naturally- tipping and spraying the blobs of paint and letting it mix. I really wanted to let the paint do the talking and not try and control anything. Much as a fire is uncontrollable, I wanted that same feeling for the basis of my painting. I chose not to sketch the koala onto the paper before I applied any paint and used a reductive technique to lift pigment. Much as a sculptor will look for the image in the stone, I looked for the image in the paint and slowly lifted colour to form the bear. In this way, I was able to see the koala as emerging from the fiery background. I feel this process is experimental as it's very organic and unplanned. I'm never quite sure what will happen or when. Watercolor on Yupo 15.5" x 11.5" x 1" $1500.00 11 x 14"
Merit Award Allen Hirsh The most powerful intellectual tool that science has is mathematics, and the most powerful device scientists have is the computer. As a physical scientist, I know that when a scientific theorem about how the world works is put into the language of mathematics, unimagined results from that theorem are often predicted as a result of following where the math leads. The computer enormously facilitates this process. I saw this as an opportunity to create a new kind of mathematical art, an art that allows me to microscopically meld, rearrange, and color transform real world images, exploring the limits of beauty, strange transformations of the human form, and exciting ways to make political and social statements. Solely by controlling the numerous equation sets in my painting software, I create fantastic hybridizations of windmills and printers, surreal studies of the classic nude female form, and parodies of our failing leader. It allows me to explore a unique esthetic power in mathematics. mathematically transformed image on photo paper 17" x 22" x 0" $950.00
Merit Award Kenzie Housego Communication today is frequently mediated through technology and may or may not always convey the meaning intended. ""Selfie Guys"" examines the selfie spectacle, its relationship to voyeurism, and how communication is transmitted, interpreted, and misinterpreted via screens. This artwork is experimental as it blends mediums combining my textile-based practice with science and technology to foster audience participation. ""Selfie Guys"" features 12 male figures taking selfies embroidered onto an idyllic 18th-century Toile de Jouy French pastoral fabric design. LEDs are placed behind the figures' cell phones, and as viewers move around the artwork an Arduino-programmed motion sensor triggers a light effect resembling phone camera flashes. This creates a surprising and theatrical experience for the unexpecting viewer. This mixing of traditional craft and technology art mediums, and using technology to facilitate a participatory element, is ultimately what is experimental for my practice. Embroidery, LEDs, Arduino microcontroller, textiles 36" x 36" x 2" $3,000.00
Merit Award Eileen MacArthur, Silas Chinsen This work was the product of a collaboration between myself and musician Silas Chinsen. It was our project for the 2020 Co-Create Collaborative Residency. I experimented with stop motion animation and worked alongside Silas' music to create an animation that explored themes of transition and impermanence. My process for Co-Create was to paint a narrative into an existing completed work, record the changes using stop motion animation, then completely remove any trace of what was added. The only record of the process is the animation, which acts as a kind of memory. video 1:54 min. $1,000.00
Acorzar y Amor, Pilsen-Chicago- Alicia
Merit Award Antonio Martinez As an experimental and process-based photographer, Martinez envisaged both the conceptual significance and visual impact of making Covid mask portraits that involved the unconventional use of hand sanitizer for ink transfer and expressive purposes. The common visual elements emphasized in each photo include a neutral background, personal face covering, shallow field of focus, and the varied directional gaze of the subject. Martinez’s use of hand sanitizer during the image transfer process is befitting for obvious reasons related to the pandemic, but it also assists in creating a metaphor for the shared haze of uncertainty that once endures during such stressful times. The selective hand manipulation of transferable ink, coupled with the aforementioned common visual elements, allows viewers to see and to feel the concept of “pandemic fatigue” or disassociation. Glycerin Transfer on hot press paper - Unique Variant 40" x 26" x 1" $2,000.00
WORRIER WARRIOR 1 + 2 (Stella Double Gray Scramble)
Merit Award Giang Pham The work was created using a multitude of different materials and methods as well as languages. The grids in the background were created using a method of monotype I developed for thick fabric and printed with acrylic paint. In addition to referencing the grid of Agnes Martin, the grid is an important component in farming, land development, and weaving. To harken towards the labor of farming and women's work, I used hand embroidery and my own version of the satin stitch to block in shapes of the negative space of text and create lines that reference Abstractionism. This work is part of a series called Abstract Anxiety, in which I pair the legibility of visual art with text in order to question perception. Acrylic paint and hand embroidery 12" x 24" x 0" $6,000.00
Merit Award Preeti Schaden Until 2020 my photography had focused on models as subjects. During the Covid-19 pandemic I turned my camera lens onto myself as the subject, playing the role of creative director and model. I chose to take on this project in spite of my discomfort at looking at myself in the mirror, let alone photographing myself. As a recovered anorexic, there has been self loathing at the center of a life that I had created to survive and become a high functioning woman. This is compounded by my first generation Indian American identity, often leaving me without belonging in either culture. This self-portrait project began as a dare to walk into the fun house and lock the door until I could find my-Self with a capital S. What I found was terrifying, ugly and beautiful in one fell swoop. The most absurd part is that I found the most profound healing, loving and ultimately acceptance that I hadn't realized I needed, nor ever thought possible through the lens of my camera looking at myself. dye sublimation, Chromaluxe aluminum, photograph 30" x 20" x 2" $2,200.00
Merit Award Deann Stein-Hasinoff When working I begin with automatic drawing. In my series on anxiety, I often found working while feeling anxious was unproductive, as I became too preoccupied with the source of the anxiety in the moment. For this piece I tried to capture what I was feeling, instead of focusing on the thoughts. The experimental aspect was translating this emotion to a visible form, without intellectualizing it or rationalizing it and then seeing what appeared. Digital drawing 24" x 18" x 1" $285.00
Merit Award Linda Vroegindewey My art focuses on connecting the animal form to the industrial side of artistic expression. The work is experimental as it relates the softer nature of the animal, to the hard form, achieved by the use of metal gears. I wanted to emphasize the natural components of the alligator but replaced the feet with the oversized gears to show movement. CERAMIC - MIXED MEDIA 5" x 7" x 16" $425.00
Honorary Mention Charles Compo Every time I pick up a paint brush, it is an experiment for me. I find myself deliberately arranging items with or without so-called symbolic significance. If I sit and stare at a painting in progress long enough, or from enough angles, forms begin to emerge. I play with the brush and paint: pushing it around on the canvas. With each stroke, thoughts emerge and find their place on the canvas. Most of my works have been revisited and repainted over many years; painted intuitively with no attachment to a finished product. Oil On Canvas 55.25" x 62.5" x 1.5" $13000.00
Honorary Mention Cindi Ford I always work intuitively by combining print processes: reduction and two block Mokuhnaga, linocut, and transfer! My processes evolve from problem solving. Content is always at the onset of my work but often evolves into a new direction. linocut, reduction and 2 block mokuhanga, transfer 11" x 30" x 0" $350.00
Honorary Mention Samantha Gullekson This piece was experimental because it challenged me to lessen my environmental impact by making it out of all reclaimed or repurposed items. Materials such as the burlap, thread, wool skirts (which I cut into strips), and wool yarn came from thrift stores, while other wool fibers and yarns were cast offs from a woolen mill or scraps from previous projects. It is made to look like plants growing in the cracks of pavement to draw a connection between nature's capacity to thrive despite challenges and our ability to utilize what we already have. Rug hooked wool on burlap 26" x 17" x 1" NFS
Honorary Mention Kelly Johner In 2019, I did a marble sculpture residency. To do this and create a sculpture in a month's time, it was necessary to learn new skills that required a much different approach to the process and use of media than I had used before. It was a life transforming and incredible learning experience. Marble always seemed a material that would require much more time and energy to work with than a month would allow. Now, with digital technology, it is possible. From the original drawing, to a digitally generated sculpture, to the actual hand working of the marble, the process was an exciting and interesting learning experience. This project was experimental and exploratory in every way for me. It required a completely different approach than any other sculpture I had done before. The idea for this sculpture required that I learn how to use digital technology or, at the very least, collaborate with someone familiar with the use of 3D scanning and a digital sculpture program such as Blender or Mudbox to create the work. marble 29" x 15" x 12" $6,500.00
Honorary Mention Steven Purtee Painting a still life can often be an exploration into how we can better look at and appreciate the common objects around us. In this painting I've tried to bring attention to individual parts that make up a still life. What is experimental for me is creating separate paintings that overlap and sit on different levels as well as using different mediums and techniques for the backgrounds while using the same technique for all the objects. The intention being that from a distance it reads as a harmonious whole image but as one moves closer , or side to side, it breaks into five distinct moments in the making of a still life. oil paint, encaustic, oil pastels 16" x 25" x 2" $2,200.00
Honorary Mention Kimberly Smith This work has pushed me to the very edges of kiln work and forming glass. Every stage requires an in-depth exploration of the previous creative process, understanding the stage the glass is in and how to deconstruct and kiln fire it to fit into the vision of the piece. Each stage of this art work builds something which is then broken to be built again. Forcing the glass to move in the kiln by creating a slab of glass that reflects the palette, then destroying the slab of glass to build from the pieces. First, precisely firing crushed and powdered glass to manipulate it into delicate lace and then shattering the lace to be used for finer details. Then pulling strands of glass in the flame that are broken down to create line and distinction in the final piece. The process is as important as the final piece. The journey through depression and anxiety is reflected in the tension between the building and destruction of each layer of the final art piece. Kiln fired Glass 6.25" x 18" x .25" $950.00
Honorary Mention Sara Tack I’ve begun investigating pattern making and its historical relationship to women’s work through the lens of various cultures. My work has often used language and typography as a medium to create social commentary, but the typography has been at least somewhat legible. This work experiments with typographic messages to make patterns while pushing the boundaries of clarity, legibility and readability. Like many women pattern makers whose work is hidden inside their homes and/or behind manufacturers names, or men they worked for, the messages in these pieces are also hidden inside the pattern. The message makes the pattern. The message is the pattern. The work’s experimental relationship to typography questions our ability to look closer and more critically at pattern work’s complicated history and to recognize, acknowledge and give credit to those who make this overlooked art form. Digital Ink Jet Print 28" x 22" x .031" $125.00
Kim Arntzen, Anne Morrison, Valarie Norman, and Mary-Lou MacDonald The first experimental aspect was the four of us deciding to create a group piece. We met through art and named our group "The Sisterhood of Traveling Art". We live in different states and countries and would be shipping the piece to each other. We had an outsider pull our names from a hat to decide who would start the piece first, etc.. With no subject in mind, Artist 1 started the piece with an acrylic wash of analogous muted colors and added map pieces as collage. Artist 2 highlighted Gladstone on the map- the city where we met. Artist 2 added interest to the piece by experimenting with scrolls, lines, and squares. Artist 3 saw the image of a human form and added abstract eyes, ear, and hair using black acrylic paint mixed from Ultramarine Blue and Sepia. Artist 4 added the final touches experimenting with dancing images. Hence the name of the final piece: "Acceleration." Mixed Media Acrylic on Board 24" x 16" x 1" $1200.00
Kate Blanchet Neomosaic uses accidental happenings caused by the texture and the random application of thrown paint. Using poppy red Inktense pencil, I outlined the main areas of importance as well as the significant movement lines. In this piece, I used a significant amount of alcohol to remove some layers of paint and restore a lighter value for the rocks. I found this to be most effective rather than adding more paint or matching colours. The alcohol proved very useful for removing any watercolour pencil residue in the wrong place as well. Mixed Media 40" x 30" x 1.5" $2040.00