A few months ago I spent a long but fun four hours jurying 555 works of art submitted to Old Town Alexandria's Gallery West's call for artists for its 14th Annual National Show. AsI had juried an earlier version of this show, maybe around a dozen years ago, it was fun to return and see the state of the nation from this unique perspective.

I can report that the quality of the entries was superb, with many more entries deserving selection than could be selected for the space.

When I finally saw the selected works in person, I was pleased to see that most of the work looked as good in its physical presence as it had via digital images. In fact, let me tell you that Eric Standley, the First Prize winner has some of the most obsessive and technically perfect work that I have ever seen, especially in the rather odd media of cut paper. But even as good as he is (and I doubt that there's anyone else on the planet who is better, maybe just as good, but his degree of technical prowess just can't be any better), I would have some good advice for this artist, and I would suggest a new subject focus for his astonishing and obsessive facility with cutting paper.

Second Prize winner Amy Swartele could have easily won the top prize, had I not been so hypnotized by the intricacy of Standley's obsession with cutting paper and also by seeing something that one doesn't see everyday in an art show in his work. But Swartele also has a deep mastery of the her technique, and she also pushes it into a modern dialogue with her unusual subject matter pairings and associations. This is a painter with a mission! There is a little bit of nightmare blended into her primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, and her color harmony has a little of Goya and Stephen King hiding behind the brush strokes.

Margaret Dowell won third prize, thus "representing" for the local artists, as the other two are from outside the DMV. I am a big fan of her work and once wrote that "Dowell is an enviably talented painter. Her paintings show not only extraordinary technical skills, but also a hungry sense of desire and an intelligent understanding of her subjects..."

What else can I say after that? I can tell you that McDowell continues to impress me with the courage and depth of her subject matter. In the brilliant painting in this show, McDowell delivers a cutting-edge portrait of DC area artist Joseph Barbaccia, who is depicted showing one of his more controversial sculptures, a brutal Bowie knife with a penis handle. Behind him, an universe of colors swirls around the grinning Barbaccia.

So without having a preconceived idea of what my agenda for this show would be (I didn't have one), I ended up awarding the top three prizes to artists who have spent the thousands of hours needed to master anything - in one case cutting paper and in two others painting - of the three, two won because their artistic vision and subject matter impressed me, and they had the technical facility to deliver their idea with enviable ease. One won because I had honestly never seen such a degree of skill applied to a singular genre with such ferocity and control.

From the Honorable Mention highlights, Nicole Santiago's "Anniversary Cake" was a tiny masterpiece of painting control and technical facility. Fierce Sonia's "Material Things" continue this talented photographer's visualization and deconstruction of her own image. Tore Terasi's amazing re-employment of microfiche film to deliver what I thought (from the digital images) was gorgeous pixilated digital imagery, but in her case using analog materials, is a clever and intelligent set of entries, which I hope will find a home in a local collector.

The prizewinners are:

1st Place - Eric Standley, "Poseidon"

2nd Place - Amy Swartele, "Breath"

3rd Place - Margaret Dowell, "Joseph and Naked Aggression"

Honorable Mentions:

Kimberley Bush, “Squatty Copperhead”

Francesca Creo, “Washed Up”

Annie Evans, “Masque”

Daniel Filippone, “American Kestrel”

Robert Madden, "Twisted Vision"

Drew Parris, "Tempest"

Nicole Santiago, "Anniversary Cake"

Fierce Sonia, "Material Things"

Tore Terrasi, "Grid Study (Gradient)"

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