National Art Exhibition 2024 (NAE)
- Monday & Friday 10:00am - 4:00pm
- Tuesday & Wednesday & Thursday 10:00am - 7:00pm
- Saturday 10:00am - 2:00pm
Guided Docent Tours are available, please contact the front desk to find out the schedule. 941-639-8810
NAE Events
Luncheon & Art Talk with Juror Jean Pederson
Whether you’re an artist or art appreciator, you will want to hear what Jean Pederson has to say. The story of how she got started to where she is now, is both captivating and inspiring. She will speak on her process of picking the winners and will be open for questions and answers. All this will take place surrounded by the impressive NAE artwork in our Main Gallery, Friday, February 16, 2024, at 11:30am
Master Workshop with Juror Jean Pederson
Join Jean Pederson in an exciting 3-day workshop at the Visual Arts Center (VAC). Great for all levels, beginners to advanced. Combine acrylic paint with mixed media products and techniques to communicate your ideas in fun, exciting, and meaningful ways in our own compositions. February 13th, 14th, & 15th, 2024 from 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Awards Reception
The public and members of the media are invited to raise a glass to the winners at the NAE Awards Reception on February 22 at 6:00 pm. Admission is $10 per person, available at the door or online at www.visualartcenter.org
Juror Jean Pederson
Jean Pederson AWS, TWSA, NWS, CSPWC, SFCA, ASA
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Jean is the author of "Expressive Portraits: Creative Methods for Painting People". She has been painting for over twenty years, balancing her strong teaching abilities, and writing with her continuing aspiration to convey her ideas in visual form. Jean's traditional practice includes referential imagery of people, still life, landscape and abstraction. The layering of a variety of media offers Jean an assortment of possibilities within her work; quality of edge, line and texture all play a role within her imagery. Although Pederson is well known for her mastery of watercolours, mixed media has become an important venue for her creative expression. The portraits in her paintings are based on people who she has met or impacted her. These subjects in her paintings often reflect different walks of life as well as diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. We are hard pressed to find a period in time when the human figure wasn't represented. Finding a way to express the human figure in a language that reflects the twenty-first century is perhaps the greatest challenge in figurative work today. |
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Juror’s Statement"It is my desire to employ different materials, scale, and processes in my work...always taking risk, searching for that connection, that one "true" moment between myself, the subject, and the viewer".
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The Biennial National Art Exhibition is one of the nation’s most prestigious juried exhibitions of two-dimensional media hosted by the Visual Arts Center.
The nearly 1,000-member Visual Arts Center brings art and culture to its community through multi-media classes, state-of-the-art jewelry and pottery studios, workshops, lectures, and art festivals. The Visual Arts Center also boasts an outstanding art and supply store, gift gallery shop and art library and displays exhibits in three galleries year-round.
Make a Donation to support the National Art Exhibition (click here)
CALL TO ARTISTS: To Submit artwork to the National Art Exhibition (click here)