Northwest Michigan Michigan Regional Juried Exhibition

Exhibit Dates: January 29, 2006 until April 16, 2006

Description: The Dennos Museum Center invited artists from Northwest Michigan including the Upper Peninsula to submit work for consideration by exhibition juror Dennis Nawrocki for the exhibition. 346 works were submitted by 184 artists of which 95 were selected for exhibition.

Region: The region includes the area bordered by Oceana, Newago, Mecosta and Isabella counties on the south and Clare, Roscommon, Crawford, Ostego and Cheboygan counties on the east, and all of the Upper Peninsula.

Statement of the Juror: "Both/And"-NOT "Either/Or"

Confronted with an overwhelming number of artworks and diversity of media, I strove to select the freshest of landscapes, visionary abstractions, experimental photographs, well-honed ceramics, mixed media sculptures, and highly crafted decorative arts. In winnowing down the many submissions, uppermost in my criteria were energy, boldness, and innovation.

As a result, a viewer may note the relative sparseness of landscapes, lakescapes, and still lifes, many of which seemed to me overly familiar in format and content. In contrast, abstraction and works in new media (wax paper and Styrofoam, for instance) seemed more compelling and free of traditional constraints. These freethinking, sometimes confounding works in the service of new ideas often stand out in sharp contrast to works of art admired for their ready accessibility.

It is, however, both vocabularies, the vanguard and the familiar, that contribute to the spicy, variegated art in our time. To do without one diminishes the other. Thus, in this edition of the Northwest Michigan Regional exhibition I have endeavored to offer a fulfilling diet of both, and trust that as you view the selections they will surprise, intrigue, and, most of all, delight you during your visit.

Dennis Alan Nawrocki
January 2006

"A Midway State of Mind"   Glenn Wolff   Acrylic and Paper on Wood

"Light Within"   Diane Carr   Aluminum, Acrylics, and Sand

"Lost Treasurers"   Charles Murphy   Oil on Canvas