Community Arts Center Seeks Submissions for Contemporary Landscape Exhibit

By KATE SNYDER

Community Arts Center

The Community Arts Center is once again challenging artists to test the limits of landscape art. The Arts Center has issued a Call to Artists for the 2017 Horizon: Contemporary Landscape exhibit. Now in its eighth year, Horizon is an international juried exhibition that showcases the latest innovations and interpretations of landscape art.

While many artists portray classic landscape paintings, others delve into more abstract realms, submitting everything from collage and photography to mixed media and cast metal sculpture. The 2016 exhibit even included a short film. 

CAC Creative Director Brandon Long says, “One of the things that makes landscape art so appealing is that the landscape is the one thing that we all have in common.  We all live on planet Earth — as far as I know.  The great opportunity that you get when creating landscape art is the chance to not only share where you’re from, but to share the endless possibility of what your world could look like.  We have featured some artists that choose to depict the world realistically, and we have others that present more fantasy-driven imaginative worlds.”

Even artists who choose to present a realistic painting from nature will sometimes change the landscape.  Long says that he enjoys seeing artists in the Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky group (a local artist group that paints from nature outdoors) dabble in some creative landscaping. “If they don’t like where a tree is, they can uproot it and scoot it to the side with just a few brushstrokes.”

The juror for the 2017 Horizon exhibit is Kensuke Yamada, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Centre College. Yamada is a ceramics artist who holds a B.A. in studio art from Evergreen State College and an M.F.A. from The University of Montana. 

Long says “I love featuring different jurors each year.  I’m particularly excited to see what Kensuke Yamada brings to the table as an artist that primarily works in a three-dimensional media.  Too often, when the word ‘landscape’ is mentioned, the immediate mental picture is that of a horizontally-inclined painting, but it’s so much more than that. In the past, we’ve even had a bronze sculpture take home an award.”

Long says that the Horizon: Contemporary Landscape exhibit is an opportunity for local artists to challenge themselves — and to be inspired by the work of artists that aren’t from this area. “It’s a competitive show. The hardest part about a juried exhibition is dealing with the fact that not everyone who applies gets in.  It’s always a guessing game when it comes to the juror’s selections. A piece that might not have been accepted last year might very well be the best-in-show this year. You never can tell what might resonate with the juror. I’m always excited to see our local artists make the cut, hanging in there with other artists from across the U.S.”

The exhibit will be on display for 10 weeks and frequently brings out-of-town — even out-of-state — visitors. Two years ago, artist Jonathan McDaniel traveled all the way from Colorado for the opening of the exhibit. 

“It seemed like a great opportunity to visit a place I’d never been to and to visit friends living elsewhere in the south,” says McDaniel. 

Long says, “The one thing that I keep hearing year after year as these artists visit the Arts Center for the first time is that we have a truly incredible space. And we do. The adaptive reuse of the historic federal building for this new, arts-focused purpose is unusual and impressive, even when looking at national examples of community art galleries.”

SO YOU KNOW

The entry deadline for Horizon: Contemporary Landscape is Aug. 1, and entry fee is $25/up to three works. All work must have been completed since January of 2013 and not previously shown in any other Community Arts Center exhibitions. Full prospectus and online entry at www.communityartscenter.net/call-to-artists. The exhibit goes up Sept. 1-Nov. 10. 

ON EXHIBIT On Exhibit through July 29

Expressions in Color – a three-woman group show featuring artwork by Donna Fogacs, Sarah Wiltsee, and Barbara Lockhart, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday through July 29, suggested donation of $5

COMING UP 

• Starry Night Studio: Paisley Fun, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 28, $35

• Painting in the Park: Fireworks over Danville, 6-9 p.m. July 13, $35

• Lunch with the Arts: Scott Erbes, Chief Curator at Speed Art Museum, noon July 19, $7/door

• Fabulous Food Art Camp, 9 a.m.-noon or 1-4 p.m. July 17-21, $100/student (second- through sixth-graders)

• Take Flight Art Camp, 9 a.m.-noon or 1-4 p.m. July 24-28, $100/per student (second- through sixth-graders)

• Middle School Nerd Camp, 1-4 p.m. July 31-Aug. 4, $125/student (seventh- through ninth-graders) 

For more information/to register online: www.communityartscenter.net.