Department-Of-Fine-Arts-2021-Juried-Student-Virtual-Exhibition

After one year off due to the COVID 19 global pandemic, the College of Southern Nevada Fine Arts Gallery is excited to share its annual Juried Student Exhibition, virtually this year, for the first time ever! This virtual exhibition features student artwork made as part of CSN Fine Arts Department, Art and Art History courses with media including drawing, painting, printmaking, and design. This year’s exhibition will feature awards selected by guest juror, artist, curator and gallery owner, Priscilla Fowler. Fowler is the founder and owner of the award-winning Priscilla Fowler Fine Art Gallery, located in the center of the Las Vegas Arts District. Priscilla Fowler Fine Art features art by local, regional, and national professional artists with solo and small group exhibitions in a range of media and subject matter, including painting, sculpture, mixed media and collage, fiber, and ceramics. In 2020 Priscilla Fowler Fine Art was named “Best Las Vegas Gallery” by Desert Companion, the magazine of Las Vegas public radio.

Priscilla Fowler is a contemporary mixed media artist whose abstract work strongly evokes natural forms. Fowler has shown along the Front Range in Colorado; nationally, in solo, juried, and group shows, including solos in Denver at the Buell Theater, the Pattern Shop Studio, and Pirate Contemporary Art. Recent exhibits include Imagined Biologies (with Virginia Jenkins) at the Dairy in Boulder, The Real Draw at the Drawing Festival in Fort Collins in 2014; and locally in Las Vegas City Hall and her own art gallery, Priscilla Fowler Fine

Juror’s Statement

“This group of pieces is a wonderful mix of ideas and expressions. To me, it shows how important it is for students at any level to study art. Where else can they find the opportunity to show what they are thinking and feeling, as well as the wonderful skills and problem-solving ability that they have acquired?

It was challenging to decide which works to give which prizes to!  Ultimately my choices were based on a response that was a mix of an appreciation of skills and narrative. If the work spoke to me and told a story, that was as important as the skills with which the story was expressed. For example, Can You See It mixed landscape, underwater scenery, and strange perspective along with a strong mix of color in various media. Untitled combines cartoon-style drawing with representational imagery and intense emotion. By the Water at first appears to be an ancient landscape but on closer examination, the animals and vegetation are exotic for either ancient or contemporary times. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sex and procreation, is here shown as sad, ambiguous: it is up to the viewer to consider why that might be the case.

There is much more to explore and enjoy, and I hope you do.”

Aphrodite, Oil on Canvas, Painting I, Professor Suzanne Acosta

The CSN Art Galleries would like to thank its guest juror, Ms. Priscilla Fowler, and its outstanding community partners, Blick Art Materials, CSN Follett Bookstores, Desert Art Supplies, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, the Neon Museum of Las Vegas for their generous support of this exhibition and our students.