Outstanding student artwork and successful art alumni will take center stage as the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at UT presents its 70th annual Student Art Competition this spring.
The exhibition opening and award ceremony will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, February 27. More than $7,500 in prizes will be awarded to student artists.
The exhibit will remain on display through March 19 in the Ewing Gallery in the Art and Architecture Building.
In addition, several alumni will present public workshops and lectures while they are on campus to judge the competition next week. The exhibition and the public workshops and lectures are all free and open to the public.
One of the highlights of the Ewing Gallery exhibition season, the Student Art Competition was created in 1947 by the founder of the UT School of Art, Kermit “Buck” Ewing.
“The UT Student Art Competition is one of the oldest continuous student competitions in the United States, now it its 70th year. Students have their work evaluated by professionals in their field—either for art, graphic design, or art history,” said Sam Yates, director and curator of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture. “Once the show is up, it is always nice to see the current trends of art in the building and the diversity in what the students are producing across the disciplines.”
This year, five talented and distinguished alumni of the UT School of Art will jury the exhibition and award prizes in the fields of fine art, graphic design, and academic papers. Jeff Baxter, product design manager at Spotify, and Paul Schlacter, a member of the Google design team, will be co-jurors in the design category; Rob Tarbell, an artist known for making pictures with smoke, and Mike Calway-Fagen, head of the Department of Sculpture at the University of Georgia, will be co-jurors in the fine art category; and Charissa Terranova, a 1992 UT graduate and current assistant professor of aesthetic studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, will be the sole juror for art history and architecture papers.
Baxter and Schlacter, both 2005 graduates, will present a workshop on collaboration and animation at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 23, in McCarty Auditorium, Room 109 of the Art and Architecture Building. They will talk about their experience working with top brands including Nike, Google, and VH1.
Tarbell, a 1993 graduate, and Calway-Fagen, a 2006 graduate, will give another public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 21, in McCarty Auditorium. Prior to his work at the University of Georgia, Calway-Fagen was an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Tarbell has shown in 20 solo exhibitions and currently is represented by Claire Oliver Gallery in New York City.
For more information about the competition or the Ewing Gallery, visit the gallery’s website.