Click here to view our current virtual show, CAFA+ Emergence, on view November 4 - December 9, 2023.
Awards
• Indicates Sold
BEST OF SHOW
Melody Knight Leary
Leaving It All Behind
Photopolymer Intaglio Print with Chine Collé
5.75 x 4.75 in
100
This is such a lovely image, and so carefully crafted. What drew me to this image is its composition: the off-kilter jumble of geometry and line that makes up the objects, some recognizable and others reduced to form, that resolves so beautifully, and so satisfactorily, in the backlit vignette in the upper left. The many elements within the frame invite, but do not dictate, a narrative, and the form of the silhouetted figure first commands our attention and then keeps us returning to divine a story.
Lindsay Elgin
Juror
SECOND PLACE
Barbara Biben
Underseas
Acrylic
14 x 25 in
NFS
Abstract work can be tricky, because it can be difficult to pin down what draws you in to a given image. Not so with this image, which has been so thoughtfully and flawlessly crafted to bring the viewer in to frame. With a color palette that can feel both somber and joyful, the entire composition is an interplay between color values and hues, with an almost mischievous, fleeting light glinting across the surface. In this regard, the title of the work feels perfect without being insistent – undersea, with filtered light and unexpected bursts of color, and a subtle mystery about where we as the viewer stand.
Lindsay Elgin
Juror
THIRD PLACE
An image of such intriguing geometry, this composition uses recognizable but wholly unpredictable squares and rectangles to give the viewer concrete forms for situating themselves, while simultaneously shifting these references just enough to keep us active participants in the work. Using the familiarity of grids, space is broken up unexpectedly, with this action of tunneling back into layers of paint that connects with the ground but that does not ground us. It's a playful image, providing whimsy in the most thoughtful of ways.
Lindsay Elgin
Juror
HONORABLE MENTION
Karin Forde Whittemore
Devon Morning
Archival Digital Photography
20 x 18 in
500
A celebration of the power of renewal that only the clear morning light may bring, this photograph harnesses the emotive capacity of the deep shadows and illuminating highlights we've been drawn to since the Renaissance. The star of our show here is the condensation that serendipitously drips and shines from puffy clouds stretched across the sunrise, semi-silhouetting a simple pitcher caught just so in a windowpane vignette. It's an image that many of us have occasioned a glimpse at, but to so successfully translate this experience in pixels requires precision and terrific care.
Lindsay Elgin
Juror