Open

Our second Art competition “Open” started in January 2019 and concluded on February 17, 2019. Art Room Gallery received entries from many countries around the world: USA, Canada, China, Australia, Finland, Italy, Japan, Indonesia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Netherlands, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. The Open theme in this competition included a diversity in types, styles and mediums (oil on canvas, acrylic, photography, mixed media, watercolor, fiber, ink, wood, ceramic, digital, installation, fused glass, screenprintig, cotton, resin). The following evaluation criteria has been used for judging the artwork: creativity, interpretation of the theme, originality and quality of art, overall design, demonstration of artistic ability, and usage of medium. Jury decided to select 83 artworks for inclusion in the exhibition. Aside from First, Second, and Third place Jury also presented Merit awards and Honorable Mention awards.

Thank you, and enjoy the exhibition!

Statement:

As an artist Thijs Biersteker creates interactive awareness installations about the world most pressing issues today. He seamlessly combines scientific research and new technologies to deliver an empowering experience that is accessible both intellectually and technologically. His immersive art installations, often described as eco- or awareness art, make the impact of the age of the anthropocene tangible using a fluid mixture of data, kinetic motion, digital visualisations, analog elements, the virtual and real worlds. Currently, Biersteker is an artist in residence at the Delft University of Technology (NL). He has been featured in Wired, New Scientist and discovery channel and exhibited amongst others at Mu Gallery (NL), Today Art Museum (CN), Dutch Design Week (NL), SXSW (USA) and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL).

Statement:

I was born at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee shortly after midnight on July 4, 1952. I spent a rather idyllic childhood living in the country outside Macon, Georgia where I started drawing at the age of about seven, got my first oil painting set at about ten and, sometime in-between, first saw an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s engineering exploits. I was sold. During high school, I attended a college preparatory boarding school with an extensive art program and was able to pursue my interest in art, including painting. From there I went to Oklahoma City University where I received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in art in 1974. In 1985, I began teaching Painting and Drawing in the Continuing Education program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and, in 1987, Basic Design and Drawing and Painting at Mt. Hood Community College. I taught at the PNCA for twenty years and at Mt. Hood for thirty. I recently retired from teaching. Beginning around 2006, I used a very energetic mark I had discovered to create images of "the universe of mind and spirit" as I envisioned it, inspired by images of the physical universe produced by the Hubble space telescope. I worked for several years to refine these, especially the spatial aspects, then moved on to a series of radiant "figures" set against a web inspired by the distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the early universe. (A web, I might add, that looks remarkably like the web of neutrons in the brain.) All through this period, I wondered about mixing color optically by overlapping the fine skeins produced by this mark and eventually began a series to explore the matter. The “Poles” series began as single panels, but evolved into two panel pieces and ultimately three panel pieces. I have now begun a new series that expands on the look of the diamond-shaped panels in the last eight “Poles” pieces. These deal with the optical mixing of color exclusively. (I like to think Josef Albers would approve.) They are unstretched and have grommets on each corner to attach them to the wall. To me, the magic of painting is the fact that it’s just a piece of fabric with paint on it, yet it creates such magic. I want that to be more evident in these new pieces, right down to raw, torn fabric around the outer edges.

Statement:

I am a professor of art at SUNY Plattsburgh. Our family live in Port Kent , New York which is adjacent to Lake Champlain.
I have been exhibiting nationally and internationally for more than thirty years. My paintings address concepts that are contrasting. Most recently, I have been exploring spirituality and unbelief. The construction of the paintings aim to offer the viewer multiple visual options that will direct them to this concept.