Light and Shadow
Juror: Anne Fletcher || Catalog
Awards:
- 1st Place – “Golden Glow” oil/alkyd painting by Carol Amos of St. Louis, MO
- 2nd Place – “Snow Day” oil painting by Sarah Grangier of Princess Anne, MD
- 3rd Place – “Lost in Shadow” photograph by Peter C. Frederick of Spotsylvania, VA
Honorable Mention:
- “Where We Met” digital photograph by Katherine McAskill of Fredericksburg, VA
- “Sunlit Parasol” oil painting by Victoria Castillo of College Station, TX
- “Fall Line Up” textile by Joan Sowada of Gillette, VY
- “West Florida Dragoon” graphite drawing by Ernie L. Fournet of New Iberia, LA
Juror's Statement:
When selecting the works to be included in the FCCA’s National Exhibit “Light and Shadow” I kept going back to the idea that you cannot have one without the other. It’s the balance, contrast and proximity of the two extremes that makes for a work of art that is engaging and well executed.
In some cases the shadows are created by silhouettes against sunsets, or from a light source that casts long, dark shadows across a still life and adds the feeling of warmth to gfigures reclining in the afternoon autumn sun. The shadows and highlights add depth and texture to the landscapes and objects being depicted.
In other works, the light and shadows tell a story. They add to the atmosphere created on a city street and to the mystery of a figure barely discernible in the shadows or coming out of the black in negative highlights. It’s those elements in the shadows that draw the viewer in, that keep us engaged with looking and examining to see if we can somehow solve the mysteries we are observing…or not.
An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however, is one who sees the light and the shadows, in addition sees something else: the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows. — Felix Adler a professor of political and social ethics in the 19th-20th C.
The pieces selected as the final winners and honorable mentions, I feel, best captured the the them of “Light and Shadow.” They each did this in slightly different ways, through the media used, the techniques applied and the subjects depicted. Some are very obvious in their depiction and others were more subtle – requiring the viewer to contemplate the images to be drawn into the work.
