Congratulations to the winners of our 2023 Blackstone Valley Art Association Spring Show!
First Place / “Summer” oil painting by Young Farwell –

Judge’s notes: Great values / composition, movement throughout, aerial perspective very evident.
Young’s comments: This is only her third oil painting – she primarily works with watercolor. Young redid this painting at least ten different times, working on its composition, before she felt happy with it.
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Second Place / “Dum Spiro, Spero – While I Breathe, I Hope” colored pencil by Alexandra Spano –

Judge’s Notes – Excellent handling of colored pencils, textures “right on”, use of mixed media nicely handled.
Artist’s Notes – Alexandra used PrismaColor colored pencils along with gold and copper leaf. She created at least 10 to 20 layers in the painting, burnishing the colored pencil between each layer.
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Third Place / “Blueberry Breakfast” oil painting by Pam Gover –

Judge’s Notes – Great value and contrasts, can “feel” the blueberries, like the magnification of subject matter.
Artist’s Notes – Pam has been working on learning new techniques.
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Honorable Mention / “Cherry Blossoms” watercolor painting by Bev Tinklenberg –

Judge’s Notes – Great handling of pigments and saving of the white paper, great composition, shadows are right on.
Artist’s Notes – Bev wanted to tackle a project involving ‘negative painting’ – where you paint the shadows around the light areas of the image.
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Honorable Mention / “Resting” film photography by Bob Evans –

Judge’s Notes – Good composition, says something to the observer, contrast and textures nicely portrayed.
Artist’s Notes – This image was shot with a Hasselblad 503Cx film camera on Kodak Portra 400 film. Bob developed it himself in a Cinestill kit and then scanned it with a Nikon Z9 into his computer.
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Honorable Mention / “A Breath In Between” photography by Lisa Shea –

Judge’s Notes – Choice of subject matter and objects nicely composed, the observer wants to read the notepaper – makes one curious.
Artist’s Notes – Lisa has wanted to do this image since the War in Ukraine began. Lisa is half Ukrainian. The photo and photo album is her mom’s; the image is of her mom. The traditional hat is Lisa’s, that she bought because it’s the style her godfather Paul likes to wear. Here is a straight-on view of the scene.

The juror for this show was Jerry Aissis.
Full details of our 2023 BVAA Spring Show: