Hampton Arts League Open Members Exhibition

View the creative work on display at The Charles H. Taylor Arts Center through March 11!

This annual exhibition features artwork by many of the over 350 Hampton Arts League Members in all media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, crafts, sculpture, and watercolor. Artworks in a wide range of styles, content, and sensibilities are included. As an open exhibition, it includes established artists as well as young or emerging artists and students who are beginning their journeys as artists.

Cash awards totaling $850, including $500 First Place, $250 Second Place, and $100 Third Place, five Awards of Merit and five Honorable Mentions were selected by judge, Solomon Isekeije.

Juror’s Statement from Solomon Isekeije

The Charles H. Taylor Annual Hampton Arts League Open Members Exhibition has enriched the narrative about art in this region and beyond, over the years. Through their artworks, every year the members grant the viewing public a unique opportunity to experience their creative visions. Through their visions, we experience their innovative and creative processes, explore their experience as we engage their artworks, and experience their excitement by participating in the mystic and alternate realities they create through their artworks. I am deeply humbled to serve this year as juror for this exhibition.

My selection for the various awards was be based on the following: innovative use of medium or media-(craftsmanship and technical ability), the creative concept embodied in the artwork, its subject matter-relevance to contemporary issues, the artist’s ability to push boundaries by taking risks and presenting the familiar to us in a different light, and finally, the artworks must invite the viewer to explore new paradigms.

To all the members of the Charles H. Taylor Art league, who have kept this age old tradition of juried exhibition alive, you are already winners in my book. I enjoyed experiencing your art-works, and hope to keep your artistic narrative alive after this exhibition during my numerous artistic engagements, and through my own creative work as a multi-media artist. Thank you and good luck.

About Solomon Isekeije

Solomon Isekeije has an M.F.A. in Visual Studies from Old Dominion/Norfolk State Universities, Norfolk, Virginia and a B.A. degree in Fine Arts from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. He has been an Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Director: Division of Fine Arts, Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Norfolk State University since August 30th, 2014. Courses taught there include Sculpture, Life Drawing, African-American Arts. He also curated and designed an annual calendar of events and exhibitions for the 2013-2014 James Wise Gallery and created the Fine Arts Department’s Annual Alumni Exhibition at Norfolk State University.

Join us for creative Arts Happenings centered around the Hampton Arts League Open Members Exhibition!

Poetry Inspired by Art
Sunday, February 11 at 2:30pm

Poets are invited to write poems inspired by the artworks in the exhibition and participate in a poetry reading here in our galleries. The poems are displayed adjacent to the artworks, with the permission of the artist and are also available in notebooks for perusal by our visitors.

Gallery Talk with the Artists
Sunday, February 18 at 2:30pm

Meet the artists featured in the Hampton Arts League Open Members Exhibition, and learn more about the artworks on display. This annual exhibition features artwork by many of the over 350 Hampton Arts League Members in all media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, crafts, sculpture, and watercolor. As an open exhibition, it will include established artists as well as young or emerging artists and students who are beginning their journeys as artists.