Judge Standard Fine Art – Donny Weber
is an American artist and paints in a contemporary impressionist style. His mediums include oil, pastel and he draws daily with both graphite and charcoal.
Donny began his art education while earning his Bachelors of Architecture at the University of Kentucky. He has continued his art education through self teaching and workshops with such artists as Scott Burdick and Kim English. He also attributes his development as an artist to many years designing and illustration presentations for clients such as Disney, Crayola, NASA, Seaworld, Warner Brothers, and Nickelodeon.
Donny was a founding Board Member of the Kentucky School of Art at Spalding University in Louisville and sat on the Executive Committee for two years. He is currently a member of the Deans Advisory Board at the University of Kentucky College of Design. His Weber Gallery in Louisville offers art education and representation to Special Needs Students and exhibits and sells their work through side-by-side programs with professional artists.
Donny and his wife Debra live in Santa Fe and Louisville, with studios in both locales.
Jurors Standard Fine Art
Peggy Immel
Peggy Immel’s landscapes are inspired by her love of the outdoors and the unique beauty of the land near her home in Taos. They convey an explicit point of view to the viewer, creating an emotional connection to a sense of place. Her paintings have been included in national exhibitions and have received numerous awards. Her work has been showcased in Santa Fean Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, Plein Air Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine and Art of the West. She is represented by Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos and Sorrel Sky Gallery in Santa Fe and Durango.
Peggy studied at Arizona State University, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, DeCordova Museum School, Lincoln, Massachusetts, and The Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan, Connecticut. She is a Master Signature Member of Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, a Signature Member of Plein Air Artists Colorado and a Signature Member of American Women Artists.
Ric Dentinger
Ric Dentinger has been painting and illustrating professionally for over 30 years while successfully balancing a career as an art director and managing his own graphic design shop.
From a very young age, Dentinger was obsessed with drawing and painting. He attended the Warren Hunter School of Fine Arts in San Antonio, where he focused primarily on watercolor painting. He has great admiration for the art of Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Edgar Degas and Anders Zorn.
Dentinger has received numerous awards for his bold and dramatic watercolor paintings throughout the United States, including Best of Show in Texas and Louisiana, and other awards in Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.
He has had articles about his work in Watercolor Artist Magazine, including the cover art, The Art of Watercolor #47 October 2022 and has been accepted 4 times in the Splash series of books highlighting the best contemporary watercolor artists. His work can also be found in the book Painting in Watercolor:The Indispensable Guide (Webb, 2016). He has taught many workshops throughout the United States and offers online group classes.
From 2009 to 2020, he was on the faculty of the Southwest School of Art (an accredited art school offering a BFA) in San Antonio, TX. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Holbein Artist Materials.
In 2018, Dentinger was selected as a Centennial Painter with the Art of Texas Parks Project, celebrating the 100th year anniversary of the Texas State Park System. His work was included in a book and a show at the Texas State Capitol in 2022.
Dentinger paints in a representational style, choosing subject matter from his environment and travels. Painting in watercolor or oil, he favors evocative subjects, such as dilapidated buildings, intriguing portraits, moody landscapes and animals with strong personalities.
Dentinger is represented by Hunt Gallery in San Antonio Texas and Worrell Gallery in Santa Fe New Mexico.
Judge Mini Fine Art – Sarah Siltala
Stillness and moments of quiet are the ephemeral influences in my work. I try to capture that brief moment where the world stops for an instant and we become fully aware. Whether a still life or landscape, I am interested in capturing the most feeling with the least amount of busy mark making to communicate my vision. I prefer smooth surfaces and empty space to showcase the small details I want the viewer to focus on. I spend several weeks on each painting, patiently layering thin veils of oil paint to reveal a depth of color and luminosity that makes each work unique. This draws the viewer in to look more closely at its hidden complexity.
Sarah’s award winning paintings have been included in museum shows and featured in national art publicationsincluding American Artist, American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur and Southwest Art Magazine. Her landscape paintings were included in AMC’s hit show Breaking Bad, and still life featured in The Book of the Bird, Birds in Art, by Angus Hyland and Kendra Wilson. In 2021 Sarah was named one of 21 New Mexico Artists to Know Now, by Southwest Contemporary. She also teaches Classical Still Life at the New Mexico Art League. She is currently represented by Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe; Collins Galleries in Cape Cod; Sugarlift in New York. Her work can be found in collections around the world.
Jurors Mini Fine Art
Susan Seligman Kennedy
As a native Albuquerquean, Susan has always enjoyed working in the field of art and has done so in various capacities.
She graduated from UNM with a BFA degree and a teaching degree. She taught art in the Dallas, TX, school system before returning to NM where she became a professional artist in the fields of Calligraphy and Watercolors. She also taught Calligraphy classes for many years and is a well-known Calligrapher.
She was a member of Escribiente, a society for calligraphers, and currently a member of the New Mexico Watercolor society where she is a Signature Member and has served as its President. She has been juried into several watercolor shows, as well as Masterworks, the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair, Weems Artfest and has won many awards.
She has created all the art work for two published cookbooks, “Simply Simpatico” and “Key Cuisine”, and her calligraphy is in the Albuquerque Zoo children’s book, “From Heads to Tails”.
She was a member of the UNM Friends of Art and served on its Board of Directors for many years. She served on the board of the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair as well.
She is honored to be a juror for Masterworks Miniature Division, a show in which she has participated and received several awards. The real art of creating miniatures is one of her passions.
Carol Lopez
Carol Lopez has been involved in the arts for most of her life working with a variety of media including oils, acrylics, charcoal and chalks/pastels. While she is mostly self-taught, she studied and trained in Japan, with a resulting Asian influence in her work. Since discovering the most ancient painting medium (beeswax) and encaustic techniques over twenty years ago, she has worked exclusively in this medium.
She entered the world of miniature art twenty years ago with her work juried into competition, and winning awards in many local, national, and international shows. She holds membership in The Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society of Washington, D.C., the Miniature Art Society of Florida, and with several other miniature art groups. Carol believes that nature is surrealistic, and that encaustic beeswax painting has provided her the means to capture this surrealism.
P. K. Williams
P.K. Williams is a mixed media artist working and residing in Placitas.
She went to the University of Texas at El Paso and received a master’s degree in Elementary Education. She began her career in art in 2012 after she and her husband relocated to Albuquerque. She has shown her work in three different galleries in Albuquerque, one of which she co-directed. During the months of October through December she had a solo exhibition at The Open Space Visitor Center in Albuquerque. P.K. has won awards locally, in Colorado and in Texas. Most recently she won the Carolann Waterson award with the Collage Artists of America. At the end of February 2020, she had her work featured on the cover of the local Alibi publication to celebrate Women’s Month. She is a member of New Mexico Women in the Arts, the Rio Grande Art Association, the Collage Artists of America, the National Collage Society, and a signature member of the New Mexico Watercolor Society.
You can view her work on her website https://pkwfineart.com or in 3 Square Art Gallery’s ( Ft. Collins, Colorado) online gallery. https://3saart.com
P.K. says; “I have a multi-faceted art practice in which I use mixed media to explore new combinations of a variety of processes. I include texture, whether it be the visual hint of texture or touchable texture, in my work and enjoy playing with a composition until it feels just right.
Typically, I abstract my connection to a subject to create artwork which incorporates many details. In doing so, I create a style which is the opposite of minimalism motivating the viewer to look again and create personal connections to their experiences.”