Pictured: Gary Aagaard, Blinded by Delight

PROSPECTUS

Artists are continuously challenging their boundaries and excavating their unique discoveries to create new and bold work. Studio Channel Islands invite you to enter your most recent break-through pieces, the ones that have led you to the horizon of your works next evolution! All media and styles are welcome.

Juror: Mat Gleason

Mat Gleason is an internationally recognized art critic and curator of contemporary practice. As the Founder of the highly controversial Coagula Art Journal he gained a reputation for confrontation and tearing down the establishment. Almost thirty years later Gleason, the outspoken critic, has become the curator, with a reputation for creating dynamic and experimental exhibitions that are no less challenging than his editorials.

Gleason is most known for his aversion to established orthodoxies and his fearlessness in voicing an informed opinion. In the Ovation TV series “Art Or Not?” (2007) he trashed popular fine art superstar Sheppard Fairey in a memorable verbal laceration that earned him the scorn and admiration. In the Bobby Sheehan-directed “Jeff Koons: Beyond Heaven” (2009), Gleason emerges as the lone voice bent on removing the emperor’s clothes and critiquing the lack of substance in the artist’s work and Koons’ well-manicured persona.

His sharp analytical tongue and ability to articulate aesthetics served him well in analyzing and critiquing the competitive body painting in “Skin Wars: Fresh Paint”, the 2015-16 television series where he sits as one of the regular judges.