Honor Awards 2017

Honor Awards 2017 June 17 - July 20, 2017. FREE opening reception Saturday, June 17, 6-8 p.m. 

Please join Art Saint Louis for Honor Awards 2017 exhibition featuring new artworks by ten award-winning artists curated from our 2016 juried exhibitions.

Graphic design by Emily Amberger

Honor Awards 2017 features 50 artworks by ten St. Louis regional artists from Missouri and Illinois. The artworks include mixed media, paintings, photography, and printmaking. The exhibit is presented June 17-July 20, 2017. A free opening reception is held Saturday, June 17, 6-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday 7 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sundays & holidays. Closed July 1 - 4 for Fourth of July holiday. Serving as Curator of the "Honor Awards 2017" exhibition was artist Joe Page, Assistant Professor and Area Head of Ceramics at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Joe received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2008 and his BA in Studio Art and Anthropology from Knox College, Galesburg, IL in 2003. A nationally exhibited sculptor, his works have been shown in solo and group exhibits. Our Honor Awards exhibition is an annual exhibit presented so that our Award of Excellence-winning artists from the previous year's juried exhibitions have an additional opportunity to show their newest or more recent works and potentially have those works 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, 18 St. Louis regional artists were eligible to submit works for curating and consideration—those artists who earned Awards of Excellence in our 2016 juried exhibits here at Art Saint Louis. Our Exhibit Curator, Joe Page, considered 137 artworks in all media by those 18 artists, and his main role was to select only ten artists and the specific artworks by those artists to be exhibited for the final show. You can view all of the featured artworks in our Facebook album for the exhibit here. The album includes highlights from our June 17, 2017 opening reception with photos by Michael Rudolf & Robin Hirsch-Steinhoff. Congratulations to Natalie Avondet and Laura Schumpert on the sale of their artworks through this exhibition. The ten featured artists in Honor Awards 2017 are: Natalie Avondet, Manchester, MO Stephen Da Lay, Shrewsbury, MO Suzy Farren, Webster Groves, MO Sheldon Johnson, St. Louis, MO Suzanne Marshall, Clayton, MO Justin Henry Miller, Cape Girardeau, MO Elizabeth Moore, St. Louis, MO Laura Schumpert, Cape Girardeau, MO Dennis Smith, Chesterfield, MO David M. Yates, Edwardsville, IL

Curator’s Statement

  “My gratitude goes to Art Saint Louis for the opportunity to jury "Honor Awards 2017." It was a pleasure to review the work and select ten artists for this exhibition, which reflects the variety and vitality of work exhibited at Art Saint Louis throughout the year. The strength and scope of the submitted artwork made the curatorial process difficult, but I ultimately selected artists whose work most expertly combined craft, concept, and aesthetic clarity.
  Rather than highlighting traditional definitions of craft, I find an interest in how artists establish their own sense of craft as an expression of agency and control: the harnessing of material and process in a manner appropriate to an idea. Natalie Avondet’s immersive paintings use carefully layered colors and marks to evoke ambiguous, highly atmospheric landscapes of depth and beauty. The collage-based, highly tactile work of Suzy Farren invokes a cyclical history, threaded between making and unmaking, of mending and destruction. The complex and frenetic paintings of Sheldon Johnson combine a vibrancy of pattern, visual texture, movement, and mark making.
  The concept behind an artwork is often derived from a reframing of old questions in new and compelling ways. Successful artwork invites a reciprocal relationship with viewers as they attempt to answer these questions while proposing some of their own. The prints of Stephen Da Lay present an intriguing tension between digital and archaic architectures, presented as a blueprint for meditating on timeless and existential questions. The quilts of Suzanne Marshall blend the narrative and material language of historical craft with a reinvestigation of folklore and mythology in a contemporary world. Justin Henry Miller’s trompe l’oeil, surrealist paintings blend humor, profanity, and science fiction while exploring darker themes of mankind’s manipulation of biology and the environment. The illustrated, poster-like quality of David Yates Paintings recall the Dadaist tradition of tongue in cheek metaphor, humor, and subversive social commentary.
  Aesthetic clarity within an artwork imbues a visual potency that allows it to transcend verbal explanation. The photographs of Dennis Smith have a way of re-orienting the viewer into the present, establishing complex patterns, cartographies, and organizations within urban decay and detritus. The still, brooding compositions of Laura Schumpert nonetheless carry with then a sense of hope and humanity within the darkest moments. An extraordinary depth and tension exists between defined form and chaos in Elizabeth Moore’s work; an eye-candy treasure trove of continuously shifting textures, landscapes, characters, and shadows.
  It is heartening to see the depth of skillful execution, critical reflection, and creative inquiry in the work of so many artists working in the region. Again, my thanks to Art Saint Louis and the artists who submitted work for the exhibition."

— Joe Page
artist, Assistant Professor, Head of Ceramics, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Some of the 50 artworks featured in Honor Awards 2017:

Natalie Avondet, Manchester, MO. "Table Rock I." 2016. Mixed Media on Canvas, 24"x20". SOLD.	Stephen Da Lay, Shrewsbury, MO. "DFE 81." 2016. Mokulito on Paper, 19"x23.5". $500.	Suzy Farren, Webster Groves, MO. "Everything but the Kitchen Sink." 2017. Mixed Media Collage, 22"x28". $350.
Sheldon Johnson, St. Louis, MO. "Eye of the World #50." 2017. Mixed Media on Canvas, 54"x56. $3,500.	Suzanne Marshall, St. Louis, MO. "Ephsheba." 2015. Hand-Sewn Quilt, 35"x46". Not for Sale.	Justin Henry Miller, Cape Girardeau, MO. "Avalanche." 2014. Oil on Canvas over Panel, 40"x36". $5,400.
Elizabeth Moore, St. Louis, MO. "Small Purple One." 2015. Acrylic on Canvas, 24"x30". $1,050.	Laura Schumpert, Cape Girardeau, MO. "Just One More Day." 2017. Photograph on Canson Platine Fiber Rag Paper, 20"x20". $700.	Dennis Smith, Chesterfield, MO. "Vermont Farmhouse." 2015. Photograph, 28"x20”. $300.

David M. Yates, Edwardsville, IL. "Quite the Cock." 2017. Oil on Canvas, 49.5"x37.5". $5,000.