Honor Awards 2016

Honor Awards 2016 June 18 - July 21, 2016. FREE opening reception Saturday, June 18, 6-8 p.m. 

Please join Art Saint Louis for Honor Awards 2016 exhibition featuring new artworks by ten award-winning artists curated from our 2015 juried exhibitions.

Graphic design by Kathy Duffin.

Honor Awards 2016 features 48 artworks by ten St. Louis regional artists from Missouri and Illinois. The artworks include ceramics, drawings, mixed media, paintings, and photography. The exhibit is presented June 18-July 21, 2016. A free opening reception is held Saturday, June 18, 6-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday 7 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday 7 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sundays & holidays. Closed Fourth of July holiday & weekend. Serving as Curator of this exhibit was Terry Suhre, Research Professor and Gallery Director, Gallery 201, University of Missouri St. Louis, where he has worked since 1996. Our Honor Awards exhibition is an annual exhibit presented to give our Award of Excellence-winning artists from the previous year's juried exhibitions an additional opportunity to show their newest or more recent works and have them curated into a special ten-artist exhibition in the ASL Gallery. Although this is a curated exhibit, it is still highly competitive. For this year's exhibit, 20 St. Louis regional artists were eligible to submit works for curating and consideration—those 20 artists earned Awards of Excellence in our 2015 juried exhibits here at Art Saint Louis. Our Exhibit Curator, Terry Suhre, considered over 150 artworks in all media by those 20 artists, and his main task or role was to select only ten artists and the artworks to be exhibited for the final show. The ten featured artists in Honor Awards 2016 are: Shawn Phillip Burkard, St. Louis, MO Christine Giancola, Florissant, MO Khara Koffel, Jacksonville, IL Linda Mueller, St. Louis, MO William H. Neukomm, Webster Groves, MO Jaime M. Sawka, Champaign, IL Laura Schumpert, Cape Girardeau, MO Jerry B. Walters, Farmington, MO Aaron Wood, Collinsville, IL Ken Wood, St. Louis, MO

Curator’s Statement

“Honor Awards 2016 is an expansive and excellent representation of the vitality and sophistication of the visual arts in St. Louis. This exhibition presents a diverse aesthetic, philosophical, and political positions featuring a broad range of studio practices, with some artists employing traditional studio practices with others embracing new materials and processes.

When asked to act as a juror for an exhibition I try to be mindful of the influences of my education and professional experience and of the colleagues, students and artists I’ve know and how all this affects the way I look at art. I see these influences as providing a flexible framework to work from, not within. I use these parameters to guide me in honoring my responsibilities to the artists and the institution.

In selecting pieces that were to make up the exhibition I looked for works I found visually compelling, conceptually engaging, and demonstrating a confidant command of the materials and processes. I was most fortunate to have an abundance of outstanding work fitting these criteria to consider.

Over the years I have come to see the juried exhibition as a creative collaboration, an aggregate of ideas between the artists, curators, and juror(s) merging into a vision that (hopefully) challenges and inspires new ways of seeing and thinking.

I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my sincerest thanks to all the artists who submitted works for the Honor Awards 2016 exhibition, and my gratitude to Robin Hirsch-Steinhoff for her kind invitation to act Curator, and to Art Saint Louis for the great work it has done over the years for the visual artists in St. Louis."

— Terry Suhre
Director, Gallery 210, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Some of the 48 artworks featured in Honor Awards 2016:

Shawn Phillip Burkard, St. Louis, MO. "Fuzzer (2)." 2015. Digital Print of Original Drawing, 24"x36". $335.	Christine Giancola, Florissant, MO. "View from the Top, St. Louis." 2013. Photograph, Digital Print, 20"x24". $600.	Khara Koffel, Jacksonville, IL. (detail view) "one by one from now until then." 2013. Sketchbook Paper, Mascara, Artificial Tears, 72"x84"x2". $1,500.
William H. Neukomm, Webster Groves, MO. "Longing." 2015. Oil on Belgian Linen, 14"x15". $1,200.	Jaime Sawka, Champaign, IL. "Pages One Through One Hundred-Fine Jewelry Catalog Series p.1, p.4, p.7, p.32, p.40, p.60." 2015. Hand Cut Fine Jewelry Catalogs, 60"x14". NFS.	Laura Schumpert, Cape Girardeau, MO. "Lost." 2015. Photograph, Canson Platine, 24"x24". $650.
Jerry B. Walters, Farmington, MO. "Familiars." 2015. Woodcut on Paper, 38"x55". $600.	Ken Wood, St. Louis, MO. "Brush 24, II." 2015. Relief Print on Paper, 22"x20". $750.	Aaron Wood (Hollywood Indian), Collinsville, IL. "Playing Catch with Jim Inhofe." 2015. Graphite, Acrylic, Collage on Reclaimed Door, 24"x26". $650.

Linda Mueller, St. Louis, MO. "38.559708, -90.368106." 2015. Photograph, Archival Lightjet Print, 72"x18". $1,400.