Clarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University (APSU) Department of Art + Design is celebrating the end of the 2020-21 academic year with the 53rd Annual Juried Student Exhibition. The professionally juried exhibition in The New Gallery runs through April 28th.
There will be a reception + awards ceremony on April 28th, via Zoom beginning at 5:30pm. All are invited to attend.
The Department of Art + Design at Austin Peay State University is proud of our students and wants to reward our outstanding student artists for their hard work and creativity.
The 53rd Annual Student Juried Art Exhibition is professionally juried from outside Austin Peay State University, emulating the practice of real-world art shows. The exhibition showcases the best artwork produced by students during the past year and gives students the opportunity to participate in a professional exhibition where a qualified juror selects artwork and artistic merit awards.
This year’s juror was Dr. Claire Kovacs, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Binghamton University Art Museum. Kovacs obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University – all in art history. She curated exhibitions at the Figge Art Museum, Coe College, and the Krasl Art Center, and the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art.
Her strategies for programming and exhibitions emphasize the ways that academic museums explore contemporary issues, foster interdisciplinary inquiry, create space for a multiplicity of voices and perspectives, and function as a site of dynamic community engagement.
She emphasizes intersectional equity, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion in collections, exhibitions, and programming. Her research practice grapples with ways that art historical research can support “The Common Good” (to borrow a phrase from the NEH), using curatorial practice and writing as a mechanism by which to amplify under-told stories.
As an extension of her teaching practice, she used her jurying duties as an educational opportunity for her curatorial students at SUNY Binghamton University. Kovacs, along with current and former curatorial interns, Morgan Moseley, Stephen McKee, Clementine Sherman, Maranda Seebarran, and Alex Ritsatos, had three rounds of voting and various discussions to select the works in this year’s exhibition. The selections were made via a blind jurying process where the artist’s names, academic rank, and major were not available to the jurors – only the image, size, and medium of each artwork.
This year’s exhibition features 45 works of art, chosen from 178 submissions, created by the following artists: Freddy Batts, Katie Boyer, Carlos Carpeña, Ashton Caudill, Christa Curtis, Vicki Davenport, Amanda Ellis, Jamie Erwin, Morgan Frost, Uyanga Ganzorig, Shania Green, Pamela Henry, Eden Jeffers, Brook Jones, Samuel Lara, Claire Layne, Rebecca Martinez, Alex Nidiffer, Brittany Ruiz Boyzo, Stephen Schlegel, Savannah Shirley, Harley Simpkins, Araya Smith, Sarah Spillers, Madison Tucker, Jeremy Vega, and Amalia Wills.
The exhibition is open April 5th-28th. Due to COVID-19 Coronavirus restrictions, The New Gallery will be open Tuesdays-Thursdays from 10:00am-3:00pm. For those who are not able to see the work in person, there will be an accompanying 3D virtual gallery tour to be released on April 8th.
Join us in recognizing the achievements of our students during the reception + awards night on Wednesday, April 28th. Beginning at 5:30pm, we will announce the award winners for the juried student exhibition, CECA Purchase Award winners, and Summer Research Award recipients. The closing event will be held in The New Gallery, and all are invited to attend. This event is free and open to the public.
For more information on this exhibition, contact Michael Dickins, gallery director, at dickinsm@apsu.edu.
