AOY announced the winners of its 11th annual Juried Show during an opening reception and awards ceremony on April 14.
The exhibition continues from noon to 5 p.m. weekends through May 14, at 949 Mirror Lake Road, Yardley (Lower Makefield Township), and online at aoyarts.org. Admission is free and there is plenty of on-site parking.
Seven awards were presented by juror Jessica Todd Smith, director of Curatorial Initiatives and the Susan Gray Detweiler Curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Guests were treated to an a capella Italian love song by Yardley’s own tenor, Behrooz Salimnejad.
The First Place Award winner, “Her Strength Comes from Her Past,” by Reena Brooks, “approaches the conventions of portraiture using much less conventional materials,” said Smith. “The delicate, yet dynamic, features of the woman depicted are sewn rather than drawn or painted. The textiles that surround her evoke a personal history and lived experience.”
The Second Place Award winner, Barbara McDougall’s oil, “Complexity,” is “an abstracted still life distinguished by an energetic application of paint and nuanced sense of color,” Smith said. “While still-life paintings often present objects as static, this composition conveys a dynamic sense of movement and masterful layering of tones.”
The Third Place Award winner, Barbara A. Churilla’s mixed media, “New Hope-Lambertville Bridge,” Smith said, “takes pleasingly familiar elements and, as in Surrealism, presents them in a way that is surprising and unexpected. Instead of being a conventional image of a landmark, as the title might suggest, the work shows the bridge reflected in the flat surface of an iron, as though in a mirror. A blue printed texture, the pattern of bubble wrap, surrounds the iron, semi-obscuring the rest of the landscape.”
Winner of the Maggy Robinson Award was Devon John Chebra’s mixed media, “Butterfly and Man No 2.” Winner of the Open Studio Award was Susan Gilli’s oil and cold wax, “Flotsam.
Receiving Honorable Mention awards were Scott Hoerl for his photograph, “Loss,” and RJ Haas for his acrylic, “Ms Fascenda.”
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