The Artist Space Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the second Portrait online Art Exhibition. Along with the selected artists, the jury selected award winners in the following art categories: painting, drawing and photography. The show displayed a variety of artistic styles and mediums: oil on canvas, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, scratchboard, graphite, ink, colored pencil, digital art, collage, photography. Out of all submissions received 128 artworks were selected to be included in the exhibition.
Best of Show
Yanteng Xiong
Short Biography and Statement
118085618@qq.com
Painting Prize
Derek Wilkinson
Short Biography and Statement
Derek Wilkinson grew up in the Pacific Northwest and received a BFA in painting from Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington. He continued his studies in painting and drawing at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, where he received an MFA in 2006. Derek currently resides in Emporia, Kansas with his wife and daughter, and has been teaching painting and drawing at Emporia State University since 2009. Wilkinson’s figurative paintings and drawings have been included in over one hundred group exhibitions across the United States. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, Emporia Arts Center in Emporia, Kansas, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Wilkinson’s artwork is unified in his pursuit to describe the human condition in a beautiful manner. Beauty inspires, motivates, and ultimately provides hope. Portraiture, whether it is self-portraits, or portraits of others, allows Wilkinson to analyze a wide range of expressions and mannerisms, which reveal playfulness, discomfort, satisfaction, melancholy, and fundamental human states. It is Wilkinson’s goal that recognizing these common emotions allows the viewer to feel connected to the subject and other humans, while better understanding themselves.
Drawing Prize
andrew elsten
Short Biography and Statement
I am a craftsman, fine artist, instructor, and father with an affinity for the poetic and the minute. My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. I received my Master’s of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University and my Bachelor’s of Fine arts from Eastern Michigan University. I now live, work, and teach in the greater Ann Arbor area. My work is cathartic, a simple reaction to life and my understanding of it. Impoverished, young, underprivileged, I was brought up learning some of life’s toughest lessons quickly and intimately. My artwork and writings are a combination of my negotiations with life, morality, anxiety, depression, and a fascination with the emotive power of the human figure and its surrounding environment. My compositions contain crumbs of the everyday, of familial interactions, solitary walks in nature, of peace within circumstance. They utilise familiar motifs present within romantic painting and literature to create a dialogue with viewers that feels familiar and safe, but all the more unsettling and uncanny. My work seeks to show similarly, the beautiful and the tragic, while the precise and meditative nature of my practice allows me to tease out my own understanding of a given circumstance or form, before engaging with the viewer and having the dialogue anew.
Photography Prize
Lisa Powers
Short Biography and Statement
Photographer, artist and filmmaker LISA POWERS tells extraordinary stories through a history-inspired lens. Her photographic artwork can be found in private and public collections globally. Currently exhibiting “Photographic illusions” at PeterDunbar Gallery. Commercially, her photographs and artworks have been featured in several publications such as New York Times magazine, Vogue Japan, PARCO Tokyo, Psychology Today, American Photography, and most notably Art&Antiques magazine. Powers has received over 100 prestigious awards for her work, was named The Circle Foundation for the Arts' Photographer of the Year, and awarded Distinction Honours from the Royal Photographic Society, UK. She was born in France of French/Italian lineage and grew up bi-coastal: New York and California. She achieved renown in photography in the 1980s with her innovative compositions and lighting techniques. As one of the few successful female commercial and fashion photographers of her time, she was highly sought-after for her artistic intellect and unique style. Lisa is a master of photographic techniques, and her visuals often take on an otherworldly Film Noir aesthetic – transforming retro imagery into thought-provoking and visually stunning pieces. She travelled widely and worked in New York, Hollywood, Paris and Tokyo before relocating to New Zealand where she now lives and works. "I am entirely self-taught in photography, and I continue learning. I think it’s precisely because I’m self-taught that I fearlessly embraced the digital darkroom and added new techniques to my traditional film/darkroom photography. I shoot people (mostly)…my background in shooting fashion is always influencing my work.”--Lisa Powers
Winners