Creating and showing original fine art since 1952
68TH OPEN JURIED
ONLINE EXHIBITION
Jurors' Comments
As artists we visually express our intimate thoughts, ideas and personalities through our art. We create for ourselves, for our own reasons, so perhaps the true judgment of the success of the work should be left up to the individual artist. However, in a juried exhibition, success is determined according to the jurors’ standards and criteria. As you peruse the selection of artwork in this exhibition, I would like to provide some insight into the qualities I look for and how the awards were chosen.
As one of two jurors invited to select the Colour and Form Society Juried Exhibition for 2020, I appreciate the opportunity to offer a few of my thoughts to everyone who entered their artworks. We were set to the task of selecting a show and six awards to an offering of 370 paintings.
One of my personal goals is to present a show that is diverse in style, subject matter and medium. I look for artworks which have been executed with sincerity, honesty, creativity, good design and creative use of colour. A unique vision wins my favour before technical skill and I have a hard time resisting artwork that displays a sense of place or captures a fleeting moment. However, other jurors may look for something completely different.
In this particular show, I had the pleasure of co-judging the entries with Sonja Hidas. There were many pieces that we fully agreed upon for placement in the final collection. There were other times when compromises had to be made which meant the exclusion of many fine artworks. Because the selection was made through tallied points, entry was not assured if one juror felt strongly about an entry, but the other was less enthusiastic. With this system in mind, this show represents a combination of two different jurors’ choices and the paintings we came to consensus on, rather than a complete collection of each of our personal favourites. This is a fair system but diversity is not necessarily achieved.
Congratulations to each contributor, whether your work was chosen or not, it was an honour to judge your wonderful creations. Thank you to the Colour and Form Society for inviting me to juror this exhibition.
Linda Kemp
CSPWC (Life), SCA (Life), OSA
Juror
Linda Kemp is internationally recognized for her unique, contemporary watercolors and acrylics. Her innovative use of negative painting is the focus of her two best selling books, Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines and Simplifying Design and Color For Artists and is featured in internet forums, videos and art publications.
She is an elected member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (CSPWC), the Ontario Society of Artists and the Society of Canadian Artists. Her award winning paintings are in collections around the world, including The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, U.K. She was awarded the A.J. Casson Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Water Colour, the top award for the CSPWC National Exhibition.
Linda instructs at symposiums and workshops throughout Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. She has served as juror for numerous national and international exhibitions.
Sonja Hidas
Juror
As a curator I have a multi-layered social arts practice, which includes bringing people together for reflective moments that ignite the community with stories of identity, nature and equality. As a contemporary artist, I work for the development of arts and culture and to support an inclusive community.
There are many artists who have not been accepted into juried exhibitions through time. If your work is part of the Colour and Form exhibition, congratulations. The reasons why your work was selected was because Linda or I or both of us agreed that something about your work resonated technically or conceptually or in both ways for us to agree upon the final selections. We looked at these works without knowing the artists names or any identifiers, which made us look at the work alone. We also looked at the work from our computer’s safety at home.
Personally, looking at the works I gravitated towards works that represented images of individuals that historically have not been represented in art. I also gravitated towards many representations of nature, especially the flowers and affectionately the frog. Nature as always is an inspiration for artists and in these times help us heal, grounds us… inside as we connect online as an arts community through these wonderful works of art.
I encourage all artists if possible, to safely get out and be inspired by people and the natural world we live in today.
Thanks to all the artists, Linda and everyone at the Colour and Form Society for bringing us together.
