|
Annual Juried Student Awards Show
Tuesday,
April 18 - Friday, May 5, 2006
Juror's Statement - Dan Grych
The criteria for selecting art for an exhibition is different
for every juror. Most jurors can agree, however, that a juror
must select the best of all the entries, which is typically the
best work of each artist; and to select enough work which will
comfortably fill the showroom. This doesn't necessarily mean that
the work not selected is bad work. Ideally it would be wonderful
to show everything that was submitted, but then you would not
need a juror, nor would it be a competition. In this case the
selection of work is to celebrate the talent of the student body
and to determine a hierarchy of awards: three cash awards (1st,
2nd and 3rd place), three merit awards and several honorable mentions.
A wonderful aspect of this kind of competition is that it is traditional
for the school and the gallery to make purchase awards, not left
up to the decision of the juror, but from the final selection
of the juror.
There were one hundred and sixty-two entries filling three rooms
of the Western Illinois University Art Gallery. In the end there
would be enough work selected to fill the largest of the showrooms
located on the second floor.
Art not selected in the first round were pop culture icons, compositions
with eyes, inconsistencies in execution, inappropriate color compositions,
if the work seemed to be damaged like surface scratches, and if
the artist did not pay attention to details, such as, minute flaws
affecting the final presentation of the work itself. Approximately
half of the entries had been eliminated after the first round.
I selected work that reflected originality, technical ability
and mastery of the medium, and thought provoking imagery.
The second round was more difficult because pieces needed to
be selected with regard to the showroom space. Anything that was
border-line after the first round was then eliminated. By that
I mean I needed to scrutinize the work more closely, while overlooking
glaring construction problems with some work that didn't seem
to matter versus construction problems with pieces that does matter.
The most difficult medium to judge was the serigraphs. They were
all basically executed very professionally, but if the piece relied
too heavily on a computer program and not enough personal creativity,
the piece was not selected.
The third round was basically to tighten up the show. Some strong
pieces were not selected because of something minor about them
that bothered me technically and personally, for instance, a strong
portrait drawing with an eye problem that was covered up instead
of addressing the mechanics of how to draw an eye accurately.
Another example: a well-executed metals piece with a decades-old
controversial abortion statement. If an artist submitted more
than one piece in the same category I selected the strongest entry.
One piece was eliminated due to late entry, a matter of principle
in fairness to other entries.
In conclusion, forty-one (41) two-dimensional pieces were selected
for the walls; and twenty-three (23) three-dimensional pieces
were selected for pedestals. I am comfortable with the number
of pieces selected and awards granted to best represent the artists
of the student body of Western Illinois University without regret.
This is an exhibition that will make the art faculty and school
administration proud of their students, parents proud of their
children, and impress future faculty and student candidates. The
selection of art for this exhibition is a silent applause for
work well done. Congratulations!
With all sincerity,
Dan Grych
DeKalb Gallery, DeKalb, Illinois
|
