ILLUMINATING PERSPECTIVES
By Kate Nearpass Ogden
Professor of Art History
Visual Arts Program, Stockton University (USA)

This year’s online exhibition, Illuminating Perspectives, features work by twenty-one artists working in a wide variety of materials. These media range from the traditional – paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolor, and gouache (opaque watercolor) – to less traditional media. This year’s first-, second-, and third-place winners are in the latter category: their media include hand-cut, reclaimed three-ring binder dividers; a natural-dyed, hand-woven wool tapestry; and digital imagery. The 21 works of art in the exhibition were chosen by a jury from 77 images submitted by artists from around the world.

The theme, Illuminating Perspectives, has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways. The most straightforward may be Serendipitous Sunrise by Susan Miiller, a beautifully executed painting in which a body of water is literally illuminated by golden light on the horizon. Another subject from nature is Nancy Wood’s San Antonio Botanical Blue, a lush closeup of blue and green flowers and leaves. Where Miiller’s oil painting on canvas was clearly painted by hand, Wood’s botanical closeup is a digitally painted photograph on aluminum panel.

There are other types of landscapes in the exhibition. Miles Jordan’s 504/907, Faith, includes straightforward photographs of New Orleans, Louisiana and Fairbanks, Alaska. Jordan explores the similarities and differences between two locations in the United States that he considers distinct yet intertwined. He explores them through narratives expressed in the form of photographic diptychs. Rich Sheaffer’s painting Science … Bah! Humbug! encompasses two images of our entire planet and conveys a message about climate change.

A very different landscape, Walking in Two Worlds, is populated by what initially seem to be fantastic creatures and patterns. The original artwork, a four-by-six-foot mural in McKinnon, Australia, was created by students aged 13 to 17 in collaboration with artist-in-residence Aunty Heather Kennedy, a Trawlaway Plemiernier Bunurong community elder, and Jessica Rogosic and Peter Eglezos, members of the art faculty at McKinnon Secondary College. Creating the mural allowed the students to reflect on their own cultural roots as well as learn about the local indigenous community and Australia’s history.

Other images in the exhibition illuminate the artist’s personal perspective on the world or some small corner of it… read the entire Illuminating Perspectives Exhibition Statement here.