The annual National All-Media Juried competition, sponsored by Citizens Community Bank, will be held at VSU’s Fine Art Gallery.

The exhibits will be displayed beginning January 17 through February 3, 2012. The hours of the exhibit are: Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. An oping reception was held Tuesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m..

National juried exhibitions have been hosted by VSU over the past 24 years, but have only been open to all media the past 11 years. The exhibit originated as a paper show, and in this year’s exhibition, there will be a showing of a large range of different styles and approaches from the artists.

There are four local artists in the exhibit: Walter Hobbs, Annette Crosby, Colleen Harris and former VSU art student Maggie Ellis. Ms. Ellis attended VSU and transferred to Savannah College of Art and Design. She entered her last drawing in a competition amongst professional artists. The exhibit will display art work from 40 artists who come from 19 different states.

Each artist, prior to being selected to exhibit their art, must complete an application along with pieces of their art work. It is important that the artist safely ship their work to VSU, because there have been occasions when art pieces have been broken in route.

A judge selects the artists’ three best works for display at the competition. For this event, 41 out of 217 pieces of work submitted were selected by the judge. The competition awarded $1500 to winners announced during the receotion.

The judge for this event is Charles (Chazz) Williams. He received his degree from Florida State University in Studio Art and Literature.

Mr. Williams is currently an Associate Professor at Albany State University, where he has taught painting and drawing for six years in the Fine Arts Department. He works with Albany Museum of Art where he is an active member of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Williams produces and exhibits his own art work and actively supports the arts in his community.

Please visit the exhibit which displays beautiful art work. One such piece of art represents a young mother’s loss of a child. The mother is on Swanee River holding the ashes of her child and spread the ashes across the river. There is Braille on this piece of art work including the scripture from Psalm 23:4.

For additional information regarding this event, please contact the Gallery Director, Julie Bowland at 229-333-5835, jabowlan@valdosta.edu, or visit the website at: www.valdosta.edu/art/gallery