Days remaining to deadline: 37
Entry Fee (Entry Fee): $30.00
Images | Minimum:Min. 0, Maximum:Max. 4
Video | Minimum:Min. 0, Maximum:Max. 4
Total Samples | Minimum:Min. 1, Maximum:Max. 4
Eligibility: Regional
State: Pennsylvania
Jury Dates: 1/24/26 - 2/28/26
Art of the State, open to Pennsylvania artists and craftspeople, is an annual juried exhibition held at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. With an established tradition of exhibiting highly creative art chosen by a distinguished panel of jurors, Art of the State provides an opportunity for both established and emerging Pennsylvania artists to exhibit their art and receive statewide recognition.
Presented by The State Museum of Pennsylvania in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, the 58th Art of the State exhibition will offer cash awards for selected entries in the categories of Painting, Work on Paper, Photography & Digital Media, Sculpture and Craft.
The fee is $30 for up to 4 works of art.
FINAL DATE TO SUBMIT ENTRIES: Friday, January 17, 2025, 11:59 PM
Entry assistance will be available by e-mail and phone from 8:30 AM until 4:00 PM Monday through Friday.
The exhibition will be open from Sunday, June 8 until Sunday, September 14, 2025.
CATEGORIES
Craft: Functional or decorative three-dimensional craft in any synthetic or natural media. Fiber arts are included in this category.
NOTE: Artists can only submit one image for each work. Artists with three-dimensional work may be asked to submit additional views.
Painting: Two-dimensional painting media including oil, acrylic, watercolor, encaustic, fresco, ink & wash, pastel, gouache and spray paint, painted on a two-dimensional surface.
Photography & Digital Media: Traditional and digital photographs, photographs printed on metal, and time-based media. Photographs printed on foam core will not be accepted. A.I.-generated art will not be accepted to the 2025 exhibition. NOTE: Artists are required to provide a media player, speakers, and screen for exhibition display purposes for digital works. Media should be programmed to play on a continuous loop. The media player should be equipped to start automatically, and to start and play when and if power is lost and returns.
Sculpture: Three-dimensional carved, molded, applied or constructed techniques using wood, glass, plaster, metal, stone, plastics, clay, soft or hard materials, found objects or natural materials. May include high and low bas relief, installations, kinetic sculpture and assemblage.
NOTE: Artists can only submit one image for each work. Artists with three-dimensional work may be asked to submit additional views.
Work on Paper: Two-dimensional works specifically created on paper, includes drawing, collage, etching, lithograph, woodblock, screen print, serigraph, calligraphy, computer art on paper, graphic art, digital art print, digital collage, monotype, cut paper and pastel.
AWARDS
A First Place Award of $500, a Second Place Award of $300 and a Third Place Award of $200 will be distributed in each of five categories.
Additional Award
The State Museum Art Docents’ Choice Award: $300
TIMELINE
June 8 until September 14, 2025: Exhibition dates
January 17: Last day for submissions (no late entries accepted)
Week of March 10: E-mail notifications of juror results
April 12 to 19: Art delivery
Sunday, June 8: Reception and awards ceremony
Sunday, September 14: Exhibition closing
September 20-27: Art Retrieval
JURORS
Selection Jurors will review all art submitted. Those with the highest ratings will be featured in the exhibition. Selection jurors:
Brenton Good
Professor of Art, Messiah University
Brenton Good is a painter and printmaker living in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He is a Professor of Art at Messiah University, where he has been teaching since 2005. His artwork has been exhibited internationally, in locations such as Berlin (Germany), Vicenza (Italy), Dubai (UAE), and Ankara (Turkey). Recently his artwork was featured in the exhibition “Rituals” at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, Illinois.
Shin-hee Chin
Professor of Art and Design, Tabor College
Shin-hee Chin, born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, earned her BFA and MFA from HongIk University before pursuing an MA in Fiber Arts at Cal State Long Beach after immigrating to the U.S. A professor at Tabor College in Kansas for 20 years, she has received multiple teaching awards and was recently nominated for the Master of the Medium for Fiber by the James Renwick Alliance for Craft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her work, exhibited internationally, explores themes of cultural identity, belonging, nature, and language, influenced by feminist traditions, Christian spirituality, and Eastern philosophy. Chin was a keynote speaker at the 2020 SAQA conference and will speak again at the 2025 SAQA conference in Florida. Her work has also been featured in several leading art journals.
Lauren Whearty
Artist and Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects
Lauren Whearty is a painter, educator, and curator in Philadelphia, PA. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Whearty is a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective and non-profit in Brooklyn, NY, where she has been curating exhibitions since 2017. She has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, the University of the Arts, Joseph Roberts Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Whearty has attended Yale’s Summer School of Art through the Ellen Battel Stoeckel Fellowship, the Vermont Studio Center, the Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat, and the Golden Foundation Artist Residency. Her first international artist residency is in 2025 at Ballinglen in Ireland.
An awards juror will select recipients in each of the categories.
Denise Ryner
Andrea B. Laporte Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
https://icaphila.org/staff-members/denise-ryner/
Denise Ryner is a writer and curator, working between Toronto and Philadelphia, where she is the Andrea B. Laporte Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Recent independently curated projects include Sediment: The Archive as a Fragmentary Base (2023–24) at Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto; and Ceremony: Burial of an Undead World (2022), co-curated with Anselm Franke, Elisa Giuliano, Claire Tancons, and Zairong Xiang at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. From 2017 until 2022 she was director/curator at Or Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia. She’s published critical essays and reviews in CMagazine, Blackflash and Canadian Art as well as in various exhibition catalogues, she was also co-editor of the Canadian Art (Fall 2020) ‘Chroma’ issue.
ABOUT US
The State Museum of Pennsylvania is adjacent to Pennsylvania’s State Capitol building in Harrisburg. It offers exhibits and vast collections interpreting the state’s heritage, art, and natural history. The State Museum is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), the Commonwealth's official history agency.
The Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation (PHF) supports the work of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission who collects, preserves researches, and interprets the treasures of Pennsylvania. Through private contributions, PHF helps PHMC protect and provide access to PHMC's 23 historic sites and museums, approximately 5 million objects, and 237 million archival items. Pennsylvania’s valued heritage is sustained through PHF.
CONTACT
Amy S. Hammond, Senior Curator of Cultural History | Art of the State Project Director
The State Museum of Pennsylvania
300 North Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120
Phone: 717-772-2840 Email: amhammond@pa.gov
Application Requirements
Artists must submit an artist statement and resume.
Eligibility Criteria
COMPETITION RULES
Eligibility
1. Artists must be current residents of Pennsylvania and 18+ years of age.
2. Work must have been created within the past (3) years (during or after October 2021).
3. Work must be able to fit through the available entrances. (Staff will be available to help.) The size limitations have changed in 2025 because of the State Museum’s renovation project. There will be three pathways to take work to the gallery.
1) Passenger elevator: The elevator door is 39.75” W x 83.5” H and the car dimensions are 75” W x 89” H x 43” D (88” on diagonal).
2) Escalator: The escalator entrance door is 29.5” W x 90.5” H and the escalator is 30” W.
3) Public stairwell: The stairs are 50.5” W and 86” H. Please note that there are four sets of stairs between the ground floor and the first floor.
4. The work must be of the Participant’s own original concept and execution. The work must be compliant with intellectual property law. If, for instance, the work contains copyrighted material, the work must be a fair use of the copyrighted material. If the work contains the copyrighted materials of others, the Participant must secure all permission prior to submission and furnish them upon request.
5. All work must be freestanding and/or ready to hang. The reverse side of two-dimensional paintings, photographs and works on paper must have a wire or D-rings for hanging.
6. All entry applications must be uploaded to Competition website. Please submit one image per work.
7. All entry applications must include an insurance value of each work submitted. If the work is for sale, the artist may submit a purchase price for each work. No insurance value may exceed the sale price.
8. The State Museum reserves the right to reject any work from the competition or withdraw any award distinction.
9. No substitutions are permitted.
10. A panel of three selection jurors representing various media will assign numeric scores through the online entry site. The art with the highest scores will be included in the exhibition. An awards juror will review the work and make the award selections.
11. All artists will be notified by e-mail of the judging results. Details for delivering or shipping of those works selected for the exhibit at The State Museum will be included in the notice. The artist may be responsible for installation of art if special conditions exist. The State Museum encourages the sale of exhibited work and does not take any commission. The State Museum collects information from interested buyers and will endeavor to connect the potential buyer to the artist. Payment must be arranged between artist and buyer. The artist must ensure that the buyer knows that art will not be available for pick up until the exhibition closes.
12. Awards are selected by the Awards Juror after accepted art has been installed at The State Museum. Award recipients will be contacted prior to the awards ceremony and are asked to refrain from making their own announcements prior to the reception.
13. Awards: A first place award of $500, second place award of $300, and third place award of $200 will be provided for each of the five categories (Painting, Sculpture, Craft, Works on Paper and Photography/Digital Media). The Art Docents’ Choice Award of $300 may be presented. The State Museum may select a Purchase Award by choosing a work for its permanent collection.
14. Refunds will not be issued after the close of the submission process unless the exhibition is cancelled.