The Association for Visual Arts (AVA) has announced the artists selected for the 2010 FRESH exhibit, which will open the night of the Downtown Chattanooga Gallery Hop, Sept. 11, and will continue through Oct. 23.
FRESH is an annual exhibit to help young and emerging artists gain valuable professional experience and exposure for their work. This competitive, juried exhibit is designed to feature artists that display artistic promise, commitment to their work and fresh ideas. This opportunity is only open to artists who have not had a major solo show and who do not have gallery representation and who reside in the Southeast.
“Fresh is quickly becoming a superlative show that attracts some of the most talented emerging artists in the Southeast,” Mark Bradley-Shoup, AVA’s director of programs, said. “AVA’s mission to support and promote emerging artists and the centralized location of Chattanooga align to make this a highly recognized and anticipated show.”
Steven Sewell, a previous exhibitor in Fresh said, “As I look back over my career as an artist, I see a clear distinction between what I was doing before the Fresh exhibition and what I’ve been doing since. It was an excellent opportunity to show my work to a number of people who had not seen it before - artists, professionals, educators, friends, all. And I think it both opened up some doors and also presented me with opportunities to put myself in places where I learned to understand my work better myself.”
Since showing in Fresh in 2007, Mr. Sewell has branched out of the region and has had work shown in galleries from Seattle to Brooklyn, San Francisco to Chicago. He is currently pursuing his MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
AVA is pleased to present 11 emerging artists from the Southeast who have been selected for FRESH 2010:
Angela Dittmar (Chattanooga, TN)
Jennifer Clay (Charlotte, NC)
Daniel Wroe (Chattanooga, TN)
Heidi Vasterling (Chattanooga, TN)
Cynthia Cusick (Irvine, KY)
Maury Gortemiller (Asheville, NC)
Tara Harris (Chattanooga, TN)
Todd Stewart (Liberty, SC)
Ericka Walker (Knoxville, TN)
Emily Scott Beck (Chapel Hill, NC)
Alicia M. Beach (Knoxville, TN)