ArtLink hosted an opening reception for their 16th Annual Juried Exhibition at the IceHouse on Thursday evening, representing work from 26 of Phoenix’s best artists together in one space.
An open call to artists brought in more than 50 submissions. From that pool of applicants, 31 pieces were chosen by a panel of jurors to display. This year’s jurors were Phoenix Art Museum Director Jim Ballinger, Phoenix artist Randy Slack, and art activist and collector Louise Roman.
The panel of jurors is meant to act as “an across the board representation of the arts in Phoenix,” said Sally Russell, an ArtLink board member.
Each year, the selection of art varies depending on the tastes of those specific jurors. In addition to the new panel of jurors, this year’s Juried Expedition is housed in a different venue.
“Now that ArtLink no longer has a home gallery that we’re working with, we can kind of move around throughout downtown Phoenix and have the Juried Exhibition at a different space each year, which is pretty exciting,” Russell said.
Though previously held in the A.E. England building, the White Column Room at downtown Phoenix’s IceHouse lent a fresh backdrop for this year’s eclectic mix of local artwork. The 1920s warehouse on West Jackson Street is billed as a venue for art openings, performances, photo shoots, private events and more.
“Basically we describe this space as a blank canvas,” IceHouse owner Helen Hestenes said. “And the only way people can come in and fill in the canvas is to have the space empty.”
The open layout and blank white walls allowed the sculptures, paintings and photography of the 26 of artists to successfully coexist.
Though the panel of jurors had already hand-selected all of the pieces, they also had the additional task of selecting three winning pieces to be revealed during the opening reception.
This year’s first place winner was the painting “Faultlines of a Saint: Saint Derrick of the Fixie” by local artist Ingrid Shults. A first-time Juried Exhibition participant, Shults is an online professor for the Art Institutes and a freelance graphic designer.
Shults said she was excited to exhibit her work and network with other artists.
The art scene in Phoenix is “always challenging conventions in the arts,” Shults said. Exhibitions such as ArtLink’s, set in a historic building with an eclectic mix of local talent, are an example of what drives that, she added.
“It’s nice to see art not just as a commodity, but also art as an experience,” Shults said.
Her winning piece is a part of a larger series depicting fictional characters with saint-like features, complete with halos, that explores the idea of a hierarchy becoming unstable.
Shults’s winning piece was just one of many displayed at this year’s Juried Exhibition. The show will be open for the public again on First Friday, September 5th, and Third Friday, September 19th.
Contact the reporter at mallory.prater@asu.edu
