On Friday, May 3rd, Bob Keyes and Dan Kany judged our 18th annual juried art exhibition. 60 works of art by 48 artists were juried into the exhibition, out of a total of 334 works submitted by 123 artists.
Juror’s Statement:
“A jurying session is like a surprise party: You don’t know who is coming and you don’t know what they’ll bring. The party game that comes to mind is musical chairs.
But the culling process can take many forms depending on the number of entries, space and pre-set parameters. For Art2013, we had complete freedom and we didn’t set out to hone the submissions into some idea that we brought with us.
What struck us most squarely was the high level of the work: More than anything else, the body of submissions as a whole was conceptually sophisticated and professionally finished.
This is ideal from the host’s and jurors’ standpoint, but it adds the bittersweet process of passing over work we like, respect and often already know. We took the work piece by piece and chose the strongest until there was no more exhibition space and we could select no more.
We think the 17% of submissions that made it into the show comprises a strong body of work. Certain themes, styles, concerns, media and approaches bubble up to the visible surface, but we didn’t seek any of these intentionally: Our personal tastes and sensibilities no doubt are factors, but we let the exhibition define itself by its inherent strengths.
In the end, we both came away deeply impressed by the Harlow Gallery’s community of artists.
We hope you enjoy their work as much as we do.
Daniel Kany & Bob Keyes, May 3, 2013
A list of artists accepted into Art2013 by town follows:
James Chute, Freeport
Ross Grams, Vienna
Stephanie Lane, South Gardiner
