EXHIBITION: As part of an ongoing commitment to promote drawing practices in the visual arts, the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNC Asheville) invites artists to submit entries to a Juried International Exhibition of contemporary drawing. UNC Asheville seeks to examine drawing as it is practiced and defined by today’s artists. Such an exhibition will demonstrate the continued significance of drawing through conventional and innovative methods. Accepted work will be exhibited in UNC Asheville’s S. Tucker Cooke Gallery from January 17, 2025, through February 14, 2025.

JUROR’S LECTURE: Esteemed juror, Laurie Lipton, will open the exhibition with a lecture about her practice on January 17, 2025, from 5:00-6:00 p.m. An opening reception for the Drawing Discourse exhibition will immediately follow the lecture in the newly renovated and expanded, S. Tucker Cooke Gallery located in Owen Hall on the campus of UNC Asheville.

CATALOGUE: A full-color catalogue of the exhibition will be printed. Each exhibited artist will receive one complimentary copy, additional copies will be available for purchase. Previous catalogues may be viewed on our website at https://aah.unca.edu/exhibitions

AWARDS: $2000 in cash prizes, as chosen by the Juror, will be awarded. A purchase prize award will also be available for the permanent collection of the UNC Asheville Department of Art and Art History. Both cash and purchase prize awards are made possible due to the generous contributions from UNC Asheville Professor Emeritus, S. Tucker Cooke. International awardees are subject to a 30% federal withholding.

ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists who are 18 years of age or older. All work must be original, and cannot have been exhibited at The University of North Carolina Asheville before. It is at the Juror’s discretion to choose single or multiple works from each artist’s submission.

MEDIA: In an effort to support the breadth of contemporary drawing, media is open to any traditional or experimental drawing media welcoming both two or three-dimensional works, video, and/or installation as long as it can fit through a doorway opening that measures 67” width x 117” height.

JUROR: Laurie Lipton was born in New York in 1953 and began drawing at the age of four. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, London and moved back to the USA after 36 years abroad. She currently resides in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA. Lipton was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School. She tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. “It’s an insane way to draw”, she says, “but the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size and detail.” “It was all abstract and conceptual art when I attended university. My teachers told me that figurative art went “out” in the Middle Ages and that I should express myself using form and shapes, but splashes on canvas and rocks on the floor bored me. I knew what I wanted: to create something no one had ever seen before, something that was brewing in the back of my brain. What I wanted fell between “isms”. It wasn’t “surreal”, it wasn’t “real”... it was lurking between the two. I used to sit for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling, Van Eyck, Goya and Rembrandt. The photographer, Diane Arbus, was another of my inspirations. Her use of black and white hit me at the core of my Being. Black and white is the colour of ancient photographs and old TV shows... it is the colour of ghosts, longing, time passing, memory, and madness. Black and white ached. I realized that it was perfect for the imagery in my work. When people see my drawings in real life, as opposed to online, they are astonished by the amount of work in them. They require your complete attention. You need to come close and examine every crazy detailed inch of every intricate piece to get the full WOW effect.”

PROGRAMMING: Additional virtual studio visit events in association with the exhibition are still to be announced.

ONLINE IMAGE SUBMISSIONS: Submissions are accepted only via CaFÉ (Call for Entry) at http://www.callforentry.org/ All entries must be uploaded using this online system. Please do not upload digital images that contain borders or text info that is not part of the original work
Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. December 1, 2024 (Mountain Time Zone)

ENTRY FEE: Each artist may submit one entry for a non-refundable fee of $30. Each additional entry, including detail images, is an additional non-refundable fee of $5 each, limit of 6 entries total (for example, the fee for 3 entries is $40, fee for 6 entries is $55). Credit cards are accepted forms of payment via CaFÉ online submission.

NOTIFICATION: All entries will receive a CaFÉ email notification of the juror’s results no later than December 16, 2024. Please check your spam folder if you do not receive an email or check the status on the CaFÉ website under My CaFÉ Entries.

AGREEMENT: Submission of an entry to UNC Asheville constitutes an agreement on the part of the entrant to all the conditions set forth in this prospectus. UNC Asheville reserves the right to reproduce accepted entries for publicity and exhibition purposes.

ACCEPTED WORKS: Accepted works must arrive ready to install between January 6-10, 2025.  Works received outside of this time frame may not be exhibited. Work should not exceed 120 lbs and should be able to fit through a standard loading dock door that measures 67” width x 117” height. The University reserves the right to exclude any work that is not professionally presented. Please note: this does not infer that works have to be framed and under glass (especially larger works). All works must remain on display for the entire exhibition. Shipped works should be packed in reusable containers with a prepaid return shipping label. Artwork may be hand delivered between January 6-10, 2025 during operating hours; Monday-Friday 9:00 am - 4:00 pm.

SALES: Sales will be encouraged and a 30% commission will be retained by UNC Asheville from the retail price listed on the entry form. All work will be available for purchase unless indicated NFS on the entry form. Purchase awards will be granted 70% of the retail price. 

CALENDAR: 
December 1, 2024 Submission deadline via CaFÉ
December 16, 2024 Notification emailed to artists
January 6-10, 2025 Delivery of accepted artwork
January 17, 2025 Juror’s lecture 5:00-6:00 p.m.
                             Opening reception 6:00-8:00 p.m.
February 14, 2025 Exhibition closes
February 17-21, 2025 Return of artwork

QUESTIONS: May be sent to Tamie Beldue; Professor & Department Chair and Coordinator of Drawing Discourse Exhibitions at tbeldue@unca.edu

Application Requirements

ONLINE IMAGE SUBMISSIONS: Submissions are accepted only via CaFÉ (Call for Entry) at http://www.callforentry.org/ All entries must be uploaded using this online system. Please do not upload digital images that contain borders or text info that is not part of the original work
Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m., December 1, 2024 (Mountain Time Zone)

ENTRY FEE: Each artist may submit one entry for a non-refundable fee of $30. Each additional entry, including detail images, is an additional non-refundable fee of $5 each, limit of 6 entries total (for example, the fee for 3 entries is $40, fee for 6 entries is $55). Credit cards are accepted forms of payment via CaFÉ online submission.

NOTIFICATION: All entries will receive a CaFÉ email notification of the juror’s results no later than December 13, 2023. Please check your spam folder if you do not receive an email or check the status on the CaFÉ website under My CaFÉ Entries.

Eligibility Criteria

ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists who are 18 years of age or older. All work must be original, and cannot have been exhibited at The University of North Carolina Asheville before. It is at the Juror’s discretion to choose single or multiple works from each artist’s submission.

MEDIA: In an effort to support the breadth in contemporary drawing, media is open to any traditional or experimental drawing media welcoming both two or three-dimensional works, video, and/or installation as long as it can fit through a doorway opening that measures 67” width x 117” height.