2023 Sense of Place Winners

2023 Participating Artists: As this event is open to artists from across the United States, the entries represent an extremely wide range of artistic skill and ability. The 413 entries received represented 151 applicants from 33 states. The process to narrow down so many entries was a difficult one and space did play a role. In all, 46 works were chosen for inclusion in the 2023 exhibition representing 19 states.

Karen Abato, Zane Ally, Sierra Bush, Kyle Chaput, Emily Clare, Catherine Conrad, Robyn Cooper, Alyssa Davis, Andrew DeCaen, Diana Dyer, Marie Echols, Michael Farmer, Richard Gilles, Juan Granados, Katrina Griffith, Pattricia Guthrie, Bro Halff, Howard Hastie, Karly Jean Kainz, Devin Lovett, Barbara Mann, John Markowitz, DaNice D Marshall, Timothy McCool, Linda McCune, Gautam Misra, Katy Mixon, Paul Moncus, Jo-Ann Morgan, Jacob Muldowney, Robert Mullenix, Christopher Murphy, Mable Ni, Anna Norton, Jose Ochoa, Judith Peck, Melissa Pinney, Seda Pound, Craig Rouse, Jess Self, Jessie Shinn, Asya Dodina & Slava Polishchuk, Jessica Summers, Patricia Turner, Mike White, Marian Zielinski

Juror Statement for "A Sense of Place" — Jeffrey Richmond-Moll

In 1977, Yi-Fu Tuan famously defined places as "centers of value," where humans transform unbounded space into sites of meaning, where space becomes humanized by the bonds we make with other humans, with the environment, with things larger than ourselves. As I reviewed the submissions to this year's edition of "A Sense of Place," I was struck by the many works that communicate a profound, deeply sensitive, and often highly personal connectedness with our world and with one another. Portraits, landscapes, cartographies, street scenes, still lifes that suggest those places where we are most who we are; the places where life and memory make us "us." In that sense, place is also about time—those stages of life when we knew connection, or when relationship was simpler, purer, more whole, even if only in hindsight. The objects that I selected for this year's exhibition are diverse in subject. The seemingly microscopic architecture and both infinite and infinitesimal structures of nature, pulsing with life or confounding understanding. Images of connections made or undone, family loved or lost, relationships—whether human, visual, geographical, or spatial—hanging in the balance. Images of a fractured self, where the sense of place within one's own body is a fragile equilibrium; pictures of the self-struggling to find place within inhospitable worlds; or the opposite, pictures of the places where we find ourselves and find rest.

Winners:

Honorable Mentions:

"Six Weeks" – Sierra Bush, Macon, GA

"Underfoot" – Marie Echols, Tignall, GA

"Plucked" – Katy Mixon, Charleston, SC

"Josecito, Uvalde, Texas" – Jo-Ann Morgan, Surfside Beach, SC

"Untitled (from On Nochaway)" – Anna Norton, Highlands, NC

Juror Award 1: "Long-Term Carbon Cycle Necklace" – Barbara Mann, Watkinsville, GA

Juror Award 2: "Mermaids Series: Breath" – Jessica Summers, Fayetteville, GA

Best in Show: "Call It Sleep" – Judith Peck, Great Falls, VA