First Place
$500
$500
Samuel Dunson, Self Portrait
Mixed Media on canvas, 72" x 48" x 2.5", $8000.00
dunson7547@gmail.com, http://samueldunson.com, Instagram: @dunsonart
Artist Statement
The only constant in life is change, therefore, life changes everything. Though a simple concept, this quote has been instrumental to my creative process and remains the foundation my artistic journey. My work has a tendency to focus on the acceptance of a constantly changing world. In doing so, I am able to either overcome or be conquered by life's changes. From my early years as an artist to present day, I strive to discern these changes through my paintings, sculptures, and videos. My work has become a coping mechanism which allows me to express my feelings and emotions within artistic means. Though my aim is to tell my own personal story, my work tends to be universal in its comprehension. I take joy in walking unbeaten paths of specific visual representation. My paintings, sculpture and video take on a somewhat complex and at times whimsical nature through its narration. I enjoy utilizing realism, and stylization within the same work format. This mix allows me to deal with weighty concepts while allowing for a light-hearted approach. And as life continues to change, I allow my my artistic approach to follow that same course.
Mixed Media on canvas, 72" x 48" x 2.5", $8000.00
dunson7547@gmail.com, http://samueldunson.com, Instagram: @dunsonart
Artist Statement
The only constant in life is change, therefore, life changes everything. Though a simple concept, this quote has been instrumental to my creative process and remains the foundation my artistic journey. My work has a tendency to focus on the acceptance of a constantly changing world. In doing so, I am able to either overcome or be conquered by life's changes. From my early years as an artist to present day, I strive to discern these changes through my paintings, sculptures, and videos. My work has become a coping mechanism which allows me to express my feelings and emotions within artistic means. Though my aim is to tell my own personal story, my work tends to be universal in its comprehension. I take joy in walking unbeaten paths of specific visual representation. My paintings, sculpture and video take on a somewhat complex and at times whimsical nature through its narration. I enjoy utilizing realism, and stylization within the same work format. This mix allows me to deal with weighty concepts while allowing for a light-hearted approach. And as life continues to change, I allow my my artistic approach to follow that same course.
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Second Place $400 
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Jesse Egner, Untitled, from "Disidentifications" series
Inkjet Print, 40" x 50" x 2", $2000.00
egnej789@newschool.edu, http://www.jesseegner.com
Artist Statement
“Disidentifications” is a series of absurd, unusual, and playful portraits of queer individuals meant to evoke the uncanny, humor, and curiosity. Inspired by the theory of disidentification as described by queer theorist José Muñoz, this series examines the liminality of disidentities that neither identify or counter-identify with a dominant ideology. As a gay man with a non-normative body, I have experienced constant rejection from members of my fellow gay community, forcing me into a precarious relationship with myself. The playful and performative acts and symbols in these photographs reflect this relationship, while the fragmented narratives and uncertainty that exist in a space between reality and fantasy reflect the liminal space of queer identity.
Inkjet Print, 40" x 50" x 2", $2000.00
egnej789@newschool.edu, http://www.jesseegner.com
Artist Statement
“Disidentifications” is a series of absurd, unusual, and playful portraits of queer individuals meant to evoke the uncanny, humor, and curiosity. Inspired by the theory of disidentification as described by queer theorist José Muñoz, this series examines the liminality of disidentities that neither identify or counter-identify with a dominant ideology. As a gay man with a non-normative body, I have experienced constant rejection from members of my fellow gay community, forcing me into a precarious relationship with myself. The playful and performative acts and symbols in these photographs reflect this relationship, while the fragmented narratives and uncertainty that exist in a space between reality and fantasy reflect the liminal space of queer identity.
Third Place
$350
Alex McClay, If Only
Emergency blanket, fabric, thread, 24" x 36" x 2", $1200.00
mcclayab@gmail.com, http://www.alexmcclay.com
Artist Statement
Before moving to Georgia, I drove from North Carolina to New Mexico on a solo adventure to see more of my homeland. On my journey, however, two things happened: I was mugged in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans and I was sexually assaulted in Marfa, Texas. These two life-altering events have changed almost everything about me. They have changed the way I approach my work, the way I think about my body, the way I use verbal and non-verbal language to communicate with those around me, the way I exist in my relationships with myself and others. I feel an urgentness, an earnestness, and a bravery when making work. In it, I renegotiate, question, and disrupt the power dynamics present in our most intimate and vulnerable spaces. Specifically, these intimate and vulnerable spaces include our minds (thoughts and memories), our bodies, and our homes. Using text/language, specific material, and the femme body, I create or rewrite narratives through writing, printing, weaving, capturing, and casting. These acts are repetitive, time consuming, and anxious acts that allow for meditation, forgetting, and remembering.
The materials I use in these acts of making communicate specific messages. For example, language and text are the most useful and fundamental ways that we can communicate our needs to one another. I imagine a string of words coming out of your mouth and finding their way to the ears of whoever is listening. Or, a text: constructed and deconstructed on a pixelated grid, sent through the airwaves from one screen to another. I use emergency blankets for both their symbolic and reflective purposes. A friend once described them as “the coldest warm you could feel”, referring to their use as a blanket in emergency situations. Ultimately, I think about this material as representing a means to an end, a tool in a survivor’s kit, a protective layer, a way to communicate and signal for help, a symbol of survival. I also use survey flags and survey tape, a material used to mark and measure land. According to American Public Works Association, pink marking material specifically signifies a measuring, or a surveying, of the land (other colors, like blue and yellow, signify water and gas, respectively). This material is used to set invisible boundaries where they otherwise wouldn’t exist.
These materials remind me of the material boundaries we can set between each other - of the things we use to signify space and arbitrary ownership. I use these materials to create boundaries for myself and my body. Helene Cixious, in her essay, The Laugh of the Medusa, asserts that women have “been turned away from our bodies, shamefully taught to ignore them, to strike them with that stupid sexual modesty...Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reserve-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word ‘silence’. (633). And to [write through my body], to break down these barriers, I found myself using these materials as protective layers, as mediators, as objects that allow me to separate myself from myself, or myself from them.
How does one use boundaries to at once make visible the system of abuse and protect oneself from it? It’s possible that these boundaries allow one to do things they otherwise would not have the courage or the power to do. It’s possible that these boundaries are mediators. I believe that the boundary can be a place where communication, cooperation, and relation occur. It can also be a place of ambiguity, of realization, of learning, and of remembering. My work seeks to create and point out these places in between. Here, power is always upended and questioned.
Emergency blanket, fabric, thread, 24" x 36" x 2", $1200.00
mcclayab@gmail.com, http://www.alexmcclay.com
Artist Statement
Before moving to Georgia, I drove from North Carolina to New Mexico on a solo adventure to see more of my homeland. On my journey, however, two things happened: I was mugged in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans and I was sexually assaulted in Marfa, Texas. These two life-altering events have changed almost everything about me. They have changed the way I approach my work, the way I think about my body, the way I use verbal and non-verbal language to communicate with those around me, the way I exist in my relationships with myself and others. I feel an urgentness, an earnestness, and a bravery when making work. In it, I renegotiate, question, and disrupt the power dynamics present in our most intimate and vulnerable spaces. Specifically, these intimate and vulnerable spaces include our minds (thoughts and memories), our bodies, and our homes. Using text/language, specific material, and the femme body, I create or rewrite narratives through writing, printing, weaving, capturing, and casting. These acts are repetitive, time consuming, and anxious acts that allow for meditation, forgetting, and remembering.
The materials I use in these acts of making communicate specific messages. For example, language and text are the most useful and fundamental ways that we can communicate our needs to one another. I imagine a string of words coming out of your mouth and finding their way to the ears of whoever is listening. Or, a text: constructed and deconstructed on a pixelated grid, sent through the airwaves from one screen to another. I use emergency blankets for both their symbolic and reflective purposes. A friend once described them as “the coldest warm you could feel”, referring to their use as a blanket in emergency situations. Ultimately, I think about this material as representing a means to an end, a tool in a survivor’s kit, a protective layer, a way to communicate and signal for help, a symbol of survival. I also use survey flags and survey tape, a material used to mark and measure land. According to American Public Works Association, pink marking material specifically signifies a measuring, or a surveying, of the land (other colors, like blue and yellow, signify water and gas, respectively). This material is used to set invisible boundaries where they otherwise wouldn’t exist.
These materials remind me of the material boundaries we can set between each other - of the things we use to signify space and arbitrary ownership. I use these materials to create boundaries for myself and my body. Helene Cixious, in her essay, The Laugh of the Medusa, asserts that women have “been turned away from our bodies, shamefully taught to ignore them, to strike them with that stupid sexual modesty...Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reserve-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word ‘silence’. (633). And to [write through my body], to break down these barriers, I found myself using these materials as protective layers, as mediators, as objects that allow me to separate myself from myself, or myself from them.
How does one use boundaries to at once make visible the system of abuse and protect oneself from it? It’s possible that these boundaries allow one to do things they otherwise would not have the courage or the power to do. It’s possible that these boundaries are mediators. I believe that the boundary can be a place where communication, cooperation, and relation occur. It can also be a place of ambiguity, of realization, of learning, and of remembering. My work seeks to create and point out these places in between. Here, power is always upended and questioned.
Fourth Place
$250
Joseph Kameen, Not Going Backwards
Oil on panel, 24" x 18", $2000.00
joe.kameen@gmail.com, http://josephkameen.com
Artist Statement
My work looks at the mental and emotional systems we devise in order to understand experiences that have no logical explanation: major life events, philosophical crises, or personal tragedies. When faced with such challenges, we look to find a meaning or purpose behind the event, even when there is none. Often this struggle leads us to construct systems that aid us in this search for answers, or that may construct meaning in itself. In particular I am interested in the ways that, though these are internal struggles, our physical surroundings become an important part of the process. My paintings depict spaces, drawn from memory, that have become sites for a type of tactile understanding of these ideas. The subjects, both figures and objects, are in the process of coming to terms with their surroundings. They are immersed in light and space, but do not acknowledge it. Distance, emptiness, and temporality are common themes, but always paired with lightness, freedom, or humor. I seek to make paintings that describe my understanding of this experience while using the physical act of painting as part of my own process of coming to terms with these questions.
Oil on panel, 24" x 18", $2000.00
joe.kameen@gmail.com, http://josephkameen.com
Artist Statement
My work looks at the mental and emotional systems we devise in order to understand experiences that have no logical explanation: major life events, philosophical crises, or personal tragedies. When faced with such challenges, we look to find a meaning or purpose behind the event, even when there is none. Often this struggle leads us to construct systems that aid us in this search for answers, or that may construct meaning in itself. In particular I am interested in the ways that, though these are internal struggles, our physical surroundings become an important part of the process. My paintings depict spaces, drawn from memory, that have become sites for a type of tactile understanding of these ideas. The subjects, both figures and objects, are in the process of coming to terms with their surroundings. They are immersed in light and space, but do not acknowledge it. Distance, emptiness, and temporality are common themes, but always paired with lightness, freedom, or humor. I seek to make paintings that describe my understanding of this experience while using the physical act of painting as part of my own process of coming to terms with these questions.