This year’s Fall Annual Juried Exhibition at Moorestown’s Perkins Center for the Arts had its most entries ever at 125 pieces.
“This year, our juror was Catherine Kuzma (last year’s first prize winner) who is an award-winning artist,” said Sharon Kiefer, curator of exhibitions. “She (Kuzma) took about eight hours and she went through each one, and she had to narrow it down to 40 …
“All the work that she thought was worthy of this exhibition, she tried to give each artist at least one in the show.”
This year’s first-place winner was Charles Kirkpatrick for his wooden bowl piece, second place went to Maria Papadopoulos for her oil painting, Barbara March was awarded third place for her multimedia piece and an honorable mention went to Catherine Scannell for her painting.
The exhibition features mediums that include woodwork, ceramics, oil paintings, acrylics, multimedia and mosaic.
Kiefer shared how Kirkpatrick’s work stuck out to her.
“ … I agreed with the juror for the first place being these wooden pieces, which were just amazing,” she said, “and speaking with him on Saturday night (Sept. 17) and speaking of the hours and hours of time and the four or five different types of wood that went into each bowl, he said he couldn’t even put a price on it.”
Award announcements were kept secret until the artists’ reception on Sept. 17.
“I don’t call the artists ahead of time to tell them they won a prize to make sure they’re in the audience,” Kiefer noted. “It’s a complete surprise to everyone … It’s pretty exciting that way, because everyone is pretty much shocked, so the artists were really happy to see their work up on the wall.”
Kiefer shared Perkins’ plans for the upcoming holiday season.
“ … For November and December in Moorestown, is our annual small works show and sale, which will consist of 26 tables of artists and crafters set up for two months on a cash-and-carry basis,” she said. “So (it’s) mostly small works that you can use as holiday gift-giving.”
The Fall Annual Juried Exhibition is open through Oct. 28. For gallery hours, visit https://perkinsarts.org.
