Gadsden Arts is pleased to announce the award winners for the 44th Southern Watercolor Society exhibition, which featured 70 paintings by top artists from around the southern United States, and the District of Columbia.
The Southern Watercolor Society was founded in 1975 to promote watercolor painting, a medium once considered only appropriate for sketching studies that would later be transformed into oil paintings.
David R. Smith, a renowned painter and member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society, selected 22 award-winning works for the exhibition.
The award for Best in Show went to winning artist Dean Mitchell, a native of Quincy, for his piece Hidden.
Smith, in making this award selection, first noticed Mitchell’s mastery of watercolor, and willingness to push boundaries in terms of color and abstraction to achieve emotional effects, before being drawn to the mysterious story of the thought-provoking scene.
Mitchell is recognized as one of America’s top painters, who currently has a solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, work in a major museum exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, and an upcoming exhibition at the Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama.
The Platinum Award winner was Chris Krupinksi, for her painting titled, Lemons with a Bowl of Blueberries.
Like Mitchell, Krupinski is collected internationally, and recognized as one of the country’s top painters; Krupinski’s piece presents an amazing variety of super-realistic textures in everyday objects that beg you to reach out and touch them.
Dongfeng Li’s painting, My Veteran Day’s Award, earned the Gold Award for this unusual realistic portrait of a veteran, with realistic detail in his face and long beard, and a loose background to draw attention to the strong light on the subject’s face.
The Juror selected the Silver Award for Susan Stuller and her painting, A Magical Moment, for her expertise in capturing light on floating bubbles, and mysterious content in the painting possibly contrasting the joy of youth and the worries of adulthood.
Finally, the Bronze Award went to Larry Hughes, for A Walk in the Park, for his subtle use of color and hues.
You can talk with top award winners and learn more about their work by joining the Gadsden Arts Museum online, on Thursday May 27, 2021, at 5:30 p.m. for an Art Talk Live.
The virtual meeting will be hosted by the Gadsden Arts staff via Zoom, and will provide local art enthusiast to meet and talk with the top award winners.
The event is free and open to the public.
To register for this virtual meet-and-greet, visit gadsdenarts.org/exhibitions/44th-Southern-Watercolor
You can also bring any group for an in-person guided tour of the exhibition by calling (850) 627-5023, or drop by on Saturday June 12, for the museum’s Second Saturday Tour.
The 44th Southern Watercolor Exhibition of 70 amazing paintings will remain on display through June 19, with the gallery open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 10 a.m. through 5 p.m.
Admission is free for museum members and children ages 17 and under, and $5 for nonmember adults. On the first Saturdays of each month, admission is free for everyone.
For live and recorded online exhibition tours, art talks, art making activities, story times, and directions to the museum, visit gadsdenarts.org
Photos Courtesy of Dean Mitchell
