It’s almost time for the next round of Art Walk Awards! Mark your calendars for Thursday, Feb. 11 for another night of art, drinks, music and cash prizes at Sole Repair. The party starts at 7 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m. Winners are announced at 9:30 p.m.
Not familiar with the AWA? Each quarter three guest judges explore Seattle’s neighborhood art walks and select nine exhibited artworks as finalists. The night of the Art Walk Awards, attendees at the event (AKA you) will vote for the winners. The top three artworks will receive cash prizes and the first-place artwork will be featured in City Arts magazine. RSVP here.
Here are this quarter’s lineup of guest judges. Take a minute to get to know them and look forward to the unveiling of their nominations in the coming days!
TARIQA WATERS
Visual artist and arts educator, Tariqa Waters is owner and curator of the infamous little Pioneer Square renegade gallery, Martyr Sauce. This year, Waters is also partnering with STG (Seattle Theatre Group) on two new projects; Re:definition, which aims to redefine historic cultural space by showcasing local visual artists in rotating exhibits occurring throughout the year and, NAAM’s Funky Congregation: Lime Kiln Club Field Day Celebration for which Waters curated images provided by the Museum of Modern Art of the first black superstar of stage and screen, Bert Williams. Additionally, Waters is a teaching artist at the Seattle Art Museum and she regularly lectures and sits on panels in and around Seattle. Her own art works can be viewed at various galleries and venues throughout the city.
What I’m looking for. What I look for in art can change as often as I change my hairstyles. Right now I’m lookin’ to pull up a chair or just sit on the floor and take in that untold or overlooked narrative. I want to be bowled over with an artist’s sincerity and fearlessness…Artists who are able to effectively express the duality between the accessible and the enigmatic. I love when bright, bold colors are mixed with unsettling frustration or pain.
CHRISTOPHER BUENING
Christopher Buening was born in Green Bay, Wis., in 1973. He earned a BFA in 1997 from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He relocated to Seattle in 1999. Buening is a long-standing member of the Seattle artist collective SOIL and has, during the past 15 years, actively exhibited his art throughout the US, most recently in the Northwest at Gallery4Culture, Seattle/Tacoma Intl. Airport and Prole Drift. His work is represented in the Washington State, King County, and city of Seattle public art collections.
What I’m looking for: First, I like a cohesive show around a central theme or idea that shows an artist’s extended commitment to a line of thought and the ability to hold their vision through various aspects of that idea or theme. I look for work that has visual punch. I look for the obsessive and the meditative. I like it when I cannot stop thinking about a piece for days, weeks, years after I see it. I want to see effort and time put into the work. I want to see the artists hand (or the intensive labor involved to erase any sign of it). I am looking for substance and beauty. I am looking for art that sticks with me long after I have ceased to be in front of it.
WESTON JANDACKA
Weston Jandacka is a maker of many things and the owner and director of Glass Box. He paints, sculpts, fabricates and designs. His work has been exhibited at Core Gallery, Cairo, Northwest Woodworking Gallery and other Seattle spaces and places, and at Aqua Art Miami and Art Monaco, but most recently his time has been spent starting and building Glass Box as a Seattle gallery where he has had the pleasure to host, collaborate and exhibit numerous local artists.
What I’m Looking For: I like work that gets in my head. I like subtle work, work that is well-crafted and well-executed from beginning to end. Work that looks machine made when it should or like a 4 year old dribbled it out when a 4 year old was supposed to. I like work that feels intentional.
