West Michigan Area Show

The work of West Michigan’s talented community of visual artists is on display at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts’ annual West Michigan Area Show. Since the 1960s, this annual juried exhibition has showcased exceptional work in all media, drawing hundreds of entries from a 14-county region. Each year, an experienced juror chooses the artists from more than 300 submitted entries, ranging from paintings, prints and photos to mosaics, ceramics, jewelry, sculpture and mixed-media works.

The 2022 juror is artist Ed Fraga. Fraga is a Detroit area artist who received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Wayne State University. Ed often blurs the line between painting and construction as image and object merge as one. As a painter he explores the human condition, touching on themes of loss and the cycles of birth and death. His distinguished awards and Fellowships include an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Fellowship, Kresge Artist Fellowship, Bellagio Center Rockefeller Foundation Residency, and an Arts Midwest National Endowment for the Arts. 

 

 

2022 West Michigan Area Show Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen Sheridan Memorial Grand Prize: Sebastian Sandu, Maria and Hanna, oil on canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second Prize: Keith Downie, Thou Art the Fruit of My Loins, acrylic, assemblage, and collage on panel

Third Prize: Seth Czaplewski, Conversations pt1, acrylic

Fourth Prize: Patricia Opel, Apples for Iduna, painted assemblage

Fifth Prize: Michael Dixon, Picaninny 1976, oil on canvas

Ward H. and Cora E. Nay Director’s Purchase Prize: Madeline Kaczmarczyk, Black and White Shadow Vase, clay, luster glazes, and glass beads

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West Michigan Potters Guild Award for Ceramics: Madeline Kaczmarczyk, Black and White Shadow Vase, clay, luster glazes, and glass beads

Director’s Special Recognition Prize: Jackson Wrede, Thirst, oil on canvas AND The Martin Maddox Prize for Imaginative Realism: Jackson Wrede, Thirst, oil on canvas

Eclectic Glass Guild of SWMI Award for Glass: Judy Hallisy, Hills and Valleys, glass

Garage Sale Art Fair Award for Excellence in Any Medium: Susan Wink, Grace & Despair, paper clay

Kalamazoo Book Arts Center Book, Print, and Paper Award: Colleen Woolpert, Virus Romance, book of stereographs with stereoscope: archival pigment prints, walnut, museum board, acid-free papers, hinges, fabric, walnut, glass lenses

Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters’ Art Quilt Award: Elaine Seaman, With and Without, fiber

Kirk Newman Art School Metals and Jewelry Department Award: Dan Giancaspro, Untitled, metals

Ninth Wave Studio Award for Ingenuity in Mixed Media or Intermedia: Julia Haw, Rainbow in a Field of Daisies, punch rug (yarn), monk’s cloth, oil, and hand-cut oak

Portage Community Art Award: Nancy Vandenberg, British Birds, encaustic and photography

Southwest Michigan Printmakers Excellence in Printmaking Award: Kristin Casaletto, The Ghost of Frederick Douglass Is Angry, intaglio

Signature Artists, LLC Award: Tatsuki Hakoyama, As if the World Wasn’t Ending, oil on canvas

 

 

 

Sponsors:

       

Additional support provided by David Isaacson in memory of his wife, Helen Sheridan.