A juried art exhibition is always a time of great excitement for local artists. Who was accepted? Who won the prize money? The 51st “Annual Winter Juried Show” of the Duxbury Art Association (DAA) is no exception, and the DAA is fortunate to be able to display the chosen art in the handsome Art Complex Museum.
Jurors Patricia Walsh, Laura Barletta and Carl Lopes chose art that ranges from abstraction to realism across a wide range of media including an “alternative materials” category. Marcia Ballou’s “Nest,” First Place winner in this category, uses painted fabrics and cotton threads to create a vibrant floral garden filled with daisies, asters and zinnias. The detail of cut clipped and stitched materials is amazing. By grouping flowers by color and keeping the stems vertical, she unites dozens of tiny florets in a unified vision. I recognize Ballou’s style from other juried shows; it’s always lovely work lovingly created.
Pamela Redick’s acrylic “Upstairs,” won First Place in painting, an appropriate award for an imaginative, meticulously painted work of a colorful quilt on a bed.
The brilliant red-and-blue quilt forms a diagonal line drawing the eye upward to a similarly colored flowerpot on a windowsill. The bright colors are in contrast to the blue/white/gray patterns of the lace curtains and wallpaper.
“Gush,” by Stephanie Roberts-Camello, is my choice for a First Prize. It is a small work of exquisitely arranged materials: encaustic, dyed silk, shelf mushrooms and rusted paper, a paper that she has soaked in a tub with rusted metal. The silk and shell-shaped fungi create a reverse “J” shape form whose edges are tucked into the curved folds of the encaustic. So organic! So original!