2020 Pine Bluff Art League Winners Announced
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Gerry DeLongchamp’s pastel “Sunrise of Lake DeGray” was named Best in Show in the 2020 Pine Bluff Art League Exhibition. The show is on view through Sept. 12, 2020, at The Arts & Science Center. Tom Richard, professor of art at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, served as this year’s juror.
DeLongchamp, Holderfield Take Top Awards in Annual Show
The winners of the 2020 Pine Bluff Art League Exhibition were announced as the annual show opened Thursday, Aug. 6, at the Arts & Science Center.
The long-running annual exhibition showcases area artists with works in a variety of two-dimensional media. The exhibition is sponsored by Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel Co.
The winners are:
Best in Show: Gerry DeLongchamp, Sunrise of Lake DeGray, pastel
First Place: Rhonda Holderfield, The Hardest Rows, oil on artboard
Second Place: Glenda Mullikin, The Three Amigos, pastel
Third Place: Crystal Jennings, Strength of the Pack, graphite
Honorable Mention: Melissa Abernathy, Only the Doorway Left, photograph
Honorable Mention: Claudia Spainhour, I’m Watching You, pastel
Pine Bluff Art League (PBAL) members represented in this show of 31 works also include Richard Davies, Shirley Dawson, Linda DeMint, Jason Duren, Barbara Owens, Inis Danley Ray, Glenda Reeves and Edie Totty.
Each year, ASC hosts the exhibition and invites an independent juror to choose the pieces for the show and determine the awards.
This year’s juror, Tom Richard, announced the top prizes Thursday, Aug. 6, via video on ASC’s Facebook page.
“The excellence in quality, creativity and skill that was inherent in all the work made the decision for inclusion and awards a difficult process,” Richard said. “Because of recent life events, awards were given to pieces that intrinsically spoke or communicated to me as an artist and art collector.”
The exhibition is on view in ASC’s International Paper Gallery through Sept. 12, 2020. ASC’s COVID-19 safety precautions include requiring masks for all visitors ages 2 and older, and limiting the number of visitors to 10 at any one time.
A virtual exhibition will launch on asc701.org in the coming days and include interviews with winning artists. This is the first year that the league’s show will be online.
Social distancing precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic ruled out the traditional opening reception with awards ceremony.
“Though we cannot have a reception this year at the ASC, we are very thankful to be able to have our exhibit,” PBAL President Claudia Spainhour said before the opening. “The league is very appreciative of all the help the staff, curator Chaney Jewell, and the executive director of the Arts & Science Center, Dr. Rachel Miller, have given us.”
About The Pine Bluff Art League
The Pine Bluff Art League (which currently comprises 42 members) meets monthly with demonstrations and programs covering oil, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, graphite and charcoal, and photography.
The group is in the process of setting up Zoom meetings in lieu of their monthly in-person meetings, Spainhour said. (They normally meet 2-4 p.m. the first Sunday of each month at the Donald W. Reynolds Community Services Center, 211 W. Third Ave. in downtown Pine Bluff. But COVID social-distancing measures have restricted large gatherings.)
Those interested in joining the league may contact PBAL Membership Chair Inis Ray at 870-536-3354, or email mediapinebluffartleague@gmail.com. Contact may also be made through their Facebook page . Membership is open to any adult interested in fine art.
About Juror Tom Richard
Tom Richard is professor of art at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, where he has taught since 1987. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from University at Albany in New York in 1993, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from Louisiana State University in 1988.
His two-dimensional mixed-media studio practices address issues of history, making history, identity, and making identity by combining planned acts of painting specific historical references with spontaneous processes and by including imagery of whimsy with dread. His work has been included in more than 100 national juried and invitational exhibitions.
Richard has had more than 50 solo exhibitions at venues across the United States; including ASC, the Arkansas Arts Center and the Historic Arkansas Museum. His work has been included in more than 100 national juried and invitational exhibitions.
His work may be viewed on his website, tomrichardart.com.
