Landscapes

Our second Art competition “Landscapes” started in December 2020 and concluded on January 28, 2021. Art Room Gallery received entries from many countries around the world: USA, Germany, Canada, Italy, France, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Austria, United Kingdom, Poland, China and Taiwan. The Landscapes theme in this competition included a diversity in types, styles and mediums (oil on canvas, acrylic, oil on linen, photography, pastel, mixed media, watercolor, digital). 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 181 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:

Full time artist since 1982, realist painter wanting to give the viewer a feeling of being present, being able to enter the scene, at least when it comes to landscapes. In details of rock etc form, rythm and structure means more. I sign my works kHz, a combination of my initials and the pronunciation in Norwegian of my surname. I live in a village called Bud in Norway, close to the sea, but also with easy access to a very mountainous region. Thus I am very privileged with my favourite themes near by. In addition to living and having my studio here, I also run my own gallery, Galleri kHz, where I have an ever changing exhibition of my own works. I mostly use acrylics when making art, with canvases from the size of postcards to large ones (up to 50" x 80 ") In my works I like to give the viewer the feeling of being present.

Statement:

Shawna Hinkel is an award-winning photographer from Dallas, Texas. She received her Certification from Professional Photographers of America (PPA) in 2014 and her Master of Photography degree in 2019. Her work has been accepted in the PPA International Photographic Competition Annual Exhibition every year since 2016, with images published in the annual Showcase Collection and Loan Collection books as well. She was the Dallas Professional Photographers Association Photographer of the Year in 2017 and 2018, and was named as one of the Top 10 photographers in Texas in 2020. She also received the American Society of Photographers’ State Elite Award in 2020. She has won a variety of other awards, and has been featured in multiple art gallery exhibitions.I love to travel and find the beauty of each place, whether it is the natural world God created, cityscapes people created, or a magnificent place that was contributed to by both.

Statement:

Enid Smith Becker works in Seattle. Inspired by the complex dynamic between humans and the surrounding world, her work reminds us of natural beauty’s powerful capacity to transform the self. Working from a contemporary understanding of the sublime, she presents a fluid, multifaceted experience that mirrors our own interactions with place and time. The layering of multiple perspectives invites the viewer to see the world through shifting lenses of time, scale, and space. The work is heavily textured in places, with layers of acrylic paint, fabric, natural materials, and paper. Enid is represented by the Seattle Art Museum Sales Gallery. Each one of us brings our own memories and desires to all we see. In a time when our lands are threatened there is a pressing imperative to find a common vocabulary, to create a reminder of the solace often found in nature. I am interested in a contemporary version of the sublime through the creation of a fluid visual experience; one which mirrors our interactions with time and place. My paintings are semi-abstracted landscapes. Oceans, fields, mountains and rivers, these images serve as a bridge between us and the natural world. Within each painting I create multiple views of the land in order to keep the eye constantly moving over the picture plane, the geometric meshing with the organic, humans responding to nature in a constantly changing dialogue. These frames are also highly contemporary, as this is how we see the world around us on a daily basis: the lenses of time, space and scale as we frame our experience though the screen of a mobile device. The paintings are not the simple depiction of a place but a reminder of our longing for nature and the concomitant complexities of our relationship with the natural world.