86th Annual Spring Show

Main Floor Gallery
April 18 – June 14, 2009

Overall the work entered in the Erie Art Museum Spring Show was very strong. Of particular note is the photography, which included lots of digital imagery. Much of the digital work doesn’t seem “digital” at all—the artists are using digital processes very effectively, just like any traditional tool. There was such overall high quality that it was difficult to make a decision. Painting, on the other hand, seemed to fall into extremes of good and bad. When I got to the end of the first round of viewing, there was still a wealth of good paintings to select from. Sculpture, although a relatively small category, had some strong work, including a couple of real standouts. Craft was overall rather disappointing, but there were some exceptions. This was a disappointment—I was expecting a better representation of good craft.

A lot of the work, paintings especially, had strong content--political comments, current events, timely references. Some of the strongest artists approached the subject matter in an unusual way, through the inventive use of materials, such as Robert Villamagna’s metal collages, or A.D. Peters’ copper and paint work.

Some of the work—such as the dog painting by Jacqueline Welsh, which was really good, very successfully avoiding the tendency to go over the edge to cuteness—had me feeling that I’d like to see more by this artist. It was good that artists could enter three works. That can be really helpful to a juror. When they did, it was very useful in assessing the overall quality of an artist’s work. I responded to those artists whose entries showed a consistent level of quality. On the other hand, there were cases where one entry that showed promise was devalued by the other two.

Among the photographs there was a tendency to subject matter that was too pretty, although often well done. Images that were a little more challenging—even, sometimes, hard to take—appealed more to me. I’m not a person that likes to assign a lot of words to a piece. I prefer to respond without knowing a lot about the work—it may not be what the artist intended, but I have a honest, visceral response, not shaped by any kind of statement or literal information. As a juror, you can never know whether a particular work is a fresh approach for that artist—you have to depend on your intuitive response. Among artists whose work I know well, I always prefer those who continue to take risks, rather than falling back on a successful formula that is repeated over and over again. I’m sure that artists who keep doing the same thing think that they are perfecting it, but I don’t know that there’s really a point to that. I think an artist needs to keep trying to refresh. I suspect that most of those artists whose works were accepted agree with that.

Lee Forest, Cradle of Civilization II	Ben Gibson, Desire	Gene Kangas, Sonny

D. W. Martin, Border Line Bliss	Brian Pardini, Untitled	Brent Kee Young, Matrix Series, Circular Construct...

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