34th Annual National Juried Exhibition
As the blog writer for the gallery and as a mere mortal, I have to write from the position of being trapped inside my own self with my own history, and my own impressions. My own experience. My own thoughts. If ever there was a blog post to try to skirt around writing from the I perspective, well, this would not be one of them.
I say all of that because not only am I a member and blog writer at Bowery Gallery, I am also an artist who enters juried shows all of the time. My relationship with juried shows is probably about the same as that of every other emerging artist: pretty turbulent.
It begins with identifying the gallery and the juror and thinking about how great they are, then mustering up the courage to say “Yes–I’m going to go for it,” and then determining which body of work to pull from. Then comes the process of selecting the 3-6 pieces I will submit, being sure that the work looks like it’s even all from the same person (because yes, I have that problem), and then texting two or three of my close artist friends to see if my selection is the best representation of myself as the artist that I currently am in this exact moment in time.
Then waiting to hear.
Hearing, and either being so very pleased…or…temporarily enduring the sting of rejection.
Rinse and repeat.
Needless to say, I am usually experiencing juried shows as someone who has a particular relationship with them: as someone who either applied and got in, applied and got rejected, chose not to apply for whatever reason, wanted to apply but missed the deadline, or somehow didn’t even realize that the show was happening. And of course, this sort of positionality affects how I view the shows that I either got into or not (or missed, or what have you). If you are reading this and you are an artist who has applied to juried shows, I know that you understand.
From the perspective of being a member at the gallery, I can’t apply to our juried show, so that has suddenly liberated me from what I now realize is a very turbulent ego. Now, I can just take in the show. Examining the work online, as I have over the last few weeks, I have ultimately been struck by what feels like a hidden message in the totality of the collection.
Spanning out with this newfound superpower of somewhat-objectivity, this show, juried by Elisa Jensen, reads as a statement on what painting is. It is a humble act, a necessary act, and a personal act, to respond to the world, to respond to one’s self, to provide an offering, in goopy, goopy paint.
As I think more on it, I realize that it is essential that this message was whispered to me from a juried show–not just some kind of small group show of much more established artists. No: the competition of it matters, the precariousness of the experience of submitting specially chosen works matters, the baited breath matters, the care in the selection process from this particular juror matters. It is a ritual act from elder to emergent—a nod. An uplift. A soulful and uniquely human tradition.
The 34th Annual Juried Exhibition, juried by Elisa Jensen is on view from August 5-23rd, 2025, with an opening reception on August 7th from 5-8pm.
-eileen mooney.
