PINE BLUFF, Ark. – Vincent Marie’s mixed-media piece “I’m Tired” has been honored with the top award of the “2023 Irene Rosenzweig Biennial Juried Exhibition.” The awards were announced during the opening reception at The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas (ASC) on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
Juror Dr. Rachel Trusty, visiting assistant professor at Bucknell University and an Arkansas native, presented the six awards:
Best In Show ($1,000) — “I’m Tired” by Vincent Marie of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana; mixed media, oil on canvas, mylar, and repurposed clothes; 36 inches by 48 inches; 2022.
“Marie uses layers of fabric to make public a series of private moments in the daily life of a transgender or a nonbinary person,” Trusty said. “The artist puts these quiet moments under deeper scrutiny, reminiscent of the current political zeitgeist of hyper surveillance. Soft, flowing layers of fabric pieced together offer an allegory of the handcrafting of a body in process, putting the power to reflect and the power to build back into the hands of the artist/maker.”
First Place ($500) — “Hold On, Let Go” by Lisa Krannichfeld of Little Rock; ink, watercolor, concrete, acrylic, and resin, on multilayered shaped panels; 32 inches by 34 inches by 3 inches; 2023.
“‘Hold On, Let Go’ is a mixed-media piece about tension — tension between materials, shadows, and figures. Strong, monochrome concrete hands hold back the form of a colorful toddler in motion,” Trusty said. “The foreground bleeds together with background, demonstrating that the child and parent are still one – if just for this moment.”
Second Place ($200) — “Norepinephrine” by Jason Bly of Wichita Falls, Texas; oil on panel, 14 inches by 11 inches; 2021.
“Bly’s trompe-l’oeil shadow box painting ‘Norepinephrine’ mixes classical referents, including a Greek sculpture with atomic-bomb preparation materials from the ’50s to address current anxieties,” Trusty said. “A painted, hyper-realistic string connects each section, suggesting these tense feelings will continue from the past, far into the future.”
Merit Award ($100) — “Cowboy in Solitude” by Paige Ellens of Memphis, Tennessee; acrylic on canvas, 70 inches by 36 inches, 2023.
“Ellens’s bold work, ‘Cowboy in Solitude,’ reads at first like a pop art futuristic landscape,” Trusty said. “Upon further scrutiny, a tiny vignette of a lonesome cowboy in the center offers a meditation on isolation or perhaps chosen solitude.”
Merit Award ($100) — “Onyx” by Kelsey Duncan of Nashville, Tennessee; stoneware, slip, underglaze, glaze, metal, and luster; 18 inches by 16 inches by 10 inches; 2020.
“‘Onyx’ by Kelsey Duncan offers a pensive, bold bust,” Trusty said. “The pattern of reflective droplet shapes on the head, the metallic earrings, and the dark fabric neckpiece contrast the highly textured skin of the piece, making the skin palpably warm. The face, concerned but steadfast, meditates with eyes closed.”
Merit Award ($100) — “Memory Dance” by Jennifer Barnett of Little Rock; photograph, 11 inches by 14 inches; 2022.
“‘Memory Dance’ by Jennifer Barnett is a study of positive and negative space, foreground and background, focus and blur,” Trusty said. “This unconventional landscape seems to include an everyday house in an everyday yard, but the colors and composition create a deeply nostalgic mood of a memory captured on film.”
The Rosenzweig exhibition welcomes submissions in traditional and digital artforms from artists in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. For the 2023 exhibition, ASC received 594 artwork submissions by 315 artists, from which Trusty chose 35.
The exhibition is supported in part by The Arts & Science Center Endowment Fund and the Irene Rosenzweig Endowment Fund. The reception was sponsored by the Pine Bluff Art League and M.K. Distributors.
The biennial exhibition began with a gift from the Irene Rosenzweig Foundation in 1992. Born in Pine Bluff in 1903, Rosenzweig was a noted scholar and teacher. She earned a doctoral degree from Bryn Mawr College, studied in Rome, and was fluent in six languages. Rosenzweig tutored President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s family members during their time in the White House. She died in 1997.
The exhibition is on view in the William H. Kennedy Jr. Gallery at ASC’s home building, 701 S. Main St., through Saturday, Oct. 14. Admission to ASC’s galleries is free.
For more information about the exhibition and to see more of the artwork in this year’s show, visit asc701.org/rosenzweig.