NOOBAA
Non-Objective Abstract Art - 4th Annual Juried Exhibition
The theme of Non-Objective Abstract Art can refer to Non-Objective Art or Non-Representational Art, which does not seek to represent specific objects, people, or other subjects found in the natural world, but instead relies on shape, line, color and form with no particular subject. Non-Objective Art is a pure abstract style that typically uses geometric motifs on a shallow picture plane. Art that has no illusion of pictorial depth made by linear perspective in the image and is purposely devoid of any references to worldly things or object. Styles include pure abstraction, such as geometric abstraction, neo-plasticism (De Stijl), color field, lyrical abstraction, concrete art, and more but must be unrelated to objective reality.
Juror: Lisa Hatchadoorian, Executive Director, MOA Museum of Art Fort Collins
DETAILS
Exhibition Date: Friday, September 16 – October 23, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday, September 16, 6-8pm
Gallery Opens for the Fort Collins Artist Studio Tour Weekend:
Saturday, October 22, 10am–5pm
Sunday, October 23, 12–5pm
AWARD WINNERS
Gold Award: Sarah Mays - “Castle On The Hill”
Silver Award: Angi Brown - “Waste Not Want Not”
Bronze Award: Shauna Martin - “Healing Waters No. 2”
Honorable Mention: Lili Francuz - “The Light Fantastic”
Honorable Mention: Shanoa Gardiner - “Interactions”
Honorable Mention: JoAnn Hovland - “Brouhaha”
Honorable Mention: Lexi Richey - “Behold”
GOLD
Sarah Mays
“Castle on the Hill”
Mixed Media Collage, 20” x 20”
2021
SILVER
Angi Brown
“Waste Not Want Not”
Acrylic, 10” x 8”
2021
BRONZE
Shauna Martin
“Healing Waters No.2”
Encaustic, 24” x 18”
2022
HONORABLE MENTIONS
FINALISTS
SELECTED ARTISTS
Angi Brown, Fort Collins, CO
Bonnie Cutts, Cedar, MN - website
Lili Francuz, Fort Collins, CO - website
Shanoa Gardiner, Mountain View, WY
Johnny Garrett, Los Angeles, CA - website
JoAnn Hovland, Fort Collins, CO
Bonnie Lebesch, Fort Collins, CO - website
Elle MacLaren, Santa Fe, NM - website
Shauna Martin, Cypress, TX - website
Sarah Mays, Fort Collins, CO - website
Benjamin Murphy, Stillwater, OK - website
Linda Reymore, Stuart, FL - website
Lexi Richey, Broomfield, CO - website
Julie Schnatz Rybeck, South Glastonbury, CT - website
Robert Schwarzenbach, San Francisco, CA
Alicia Thompson, Fort Collins, CO - website
Shawna Turner, Fort Collins, CO - website
Bernadette Youngquist, Fort Collins, CO - website
JUROR
Lisa Hatchadoorian
The Executive Director of the Museum of Art Fort Collins, CO
ABOUT
Lisa Hatchadoorian is currently the Executive Director of the Museum of Art Fort Collins. She is responsible for the strategic direction of the museum, budget, fundraising, staffing, donor, member and sponsor cultivation, and the artistic direction of programming. She received a B.A. in Art History and Music from the University of Virginia and an MA in Curatorial Studies of Contemporary Art from Bard College, NY. She has over 20 years experience in arts administration, curating, grant writing, organizing public art projects and fundraising and her experience has ranged from the corporate to academic, municipal and non-profit venues. She has been a visiting lecturer at CSU (Osher Institute) in Fort Collins, CO, Casper College, Casper, WY and has taught art appreciation at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ and Casper College, Casper, WY.
JUROR’S STATEMENT
Here we are, 110 years removed from when the first abstract paintings were presented to the world by artists such as Kandinsky, Dove, Picabia, and Delauney in 1912. Even after more than a century, abstraction is still fertile ground for creative exploration as it encompasses everything from the resolutely minimal surface to the performative explosion of paint and gesture from Jackson Pollock to enfolding other art mediums and materials plus new digital influences and conceptualism.
Abstraction is deceptive in that the comment of “I can do that!” masks the rigor and focus that it takes to “paint not the thing, but the effect it produces” (Stéphane Mallarmé). That easy dismissiveness of the complexity of abstraction because of a perceived lack of technique disregards the freedom and sense of exploration that comes from facing the enormity of wrestling with the task of pouring abstraction into a physical object. The roots of the word abstraction actually come from words meaning “to isolate” or “to remove” and “separating accident from substance.” To me, that phrase, “separating accident from substance” is the core of what abstraction means and highlights the paradox contained within its surface. It is both accident and substance, one and the other, both and not at the same time.
In this 4th Annual NOOBAA Exhibition, the majority of the work is painting but there are other mediums represented as well along with the full spectrum of surfaces from minimal with incised lines to brightly colored vortexes of gestural brushstrokes. You will see artists playing with the language of paint in all forms and mediums from blobs of glass to impressionistic felt, to finger markings, scraped surfaces, feathery brushstrokes and dense, thick chunks of luscious paint. This “will to abstraction” seems to still have a gravitational pull to artists and is inexhaustible in terms of its emotional, physical, material, creative and spiritual force in the world.
Lisa Hatchadoorian
September 2022
OPENING - SLIDESHOW
EXHIBITION - SLIDESHOW
CURATOR