Call Description

Exhibition dates Saturday October 25–Sunday, December 7, 2025

This is a juried visual art competition and exhibition that is open to two-dimensional figurative artists (referencing the human figure), who are over the age of 18, working in painting, drawing, printmaking, or fiber.

-------------------------

This year's juror is Yvonne Petkus! Originally from New Jersey and with degrees from Syracuse University (BFA) and the University of Washington (MFA), artist Yvonne Petkus uses her process-based paintings to explore ideas of struggle, persistence, and forces against the body (sometimes all found in a single gesture, like a dash or a run). In a search for both material and image-based resonances, her work is about what we carry and hold just under the skin, expressed as fragments, weights, accumulations, and glimpses. Using a repeated, mediated human figure and the relationship between figure and environment, each piece is found through a directed struggle, formed and broken, and formed again by mark-making as a living action.

Petkus is committed to a discourse of ideas through an ongoing schedule of national and international exhibitions and lectures – and through teaching, first at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and then at Western Kentucky University, where she has led the painting program and taught painting and drawing (including Anatomy and Figure Studies) since 2000.

Honors include awards from the Great Meadows Foundation, Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, and in recently being named University Distinguished Professor. Petkus also served as the U.S. Juror on the jury panel for the 2023 ZVONO Award in Bosnia-Herzegovina and as a visiting artist at Residency Unlimited in Brooklyn, New York (for awardees from similar competitions in Central and Eastern Europe). She has presented her work at conferences of the College Art Association, SECAC, the Athens Institute (in Athens, Greece), attended artist residencies in New York, Vermont, Iceland, and, most recently, Italy, and was chosen for the ZSEIFS Fellowship Program in Bosnia in 2017. Following this fellowship, Petkus curated an international exhibition of work by twelve artists titled Proof of Existence: An Exhibit of Work by Contemporary Artists of Bosnian and Balkan Origin and has since presented the results of this curatorial work and her own ongoing studio research in venues around the country and world, including in Sarajevo at the KUMA International Center for Visual Art from Post-Conflict Societies Conference on Contemporary Art, and as a panel member for the Austria-based podcast "Contemporary Matters". Her work has been critically reviewed in the journal Under Main and recent solo exhibitions include Traces, Forces, Actions at Buckham Gallery in Flint, Michigan and Material Findings: Paintings by Yvonne Petkus at Moremen Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky, where her work is represented. Throughout her roles, Petkus has seen the power that artwork has to give voice, to challenge, and to connect; and uses her work and work with other artists to provide the space, discourse, and material evidence of that power.

Yvonne will attend the opening on October 25 to give remarks and award prizes.

 -------------------------------

Awards: 

Best of Show - $2,000

Second Prize - $1,500

Third Prize - $1,000

Fourth Prize - $750 

Fifth Prize - $500

Application Requirements

Exhibition inclusions will be juried from digital media, so quality is essential. Artists may submit up to three (3) works for the non-refundable fee of $25. All works entered must have been created within the last five (5) years (no earlier than 2020).

Images should be 300 dpi JPEG files, no smaller than 5” x 7” in scale.

 ****Deadline for entries: August 17, 2025 11:59 PM Mountain Time****

Accepted Works and Shipping: Notification of acceptance via e-mail will be the week of September 1, 2025

Timeline:

August 17: Application deadline; 11:59 PM MOUNTAIN TIME

Sept. 1–5: Notifications e-mailed

October 10: Deadline for received works

October 25: Exhibition Opening and Award Presentation (7–9 pm)

December 7: Exhibition ends

December 10: Starting date for return of works (shipping will be on hold for the holiday rush between Dec 17 through Jan 4)

Eligibility Criteria

The Lore Degenstein Gallery reserves the right to not display work that differs significantly from the submitted files. All accepted works must be framed or otherwise ready to hang. Works may be shipped via USPS, UPS or FedEx, or hand delivered. Works will not be returned before the end of the exhibition.

Artists are responsible for shipping their work both ways. Either include a pre-paid (ready-to-use) label for return shipping in the package, or send via email.

All materials should be mailed to:

Lore Degenstein Gallery

Susquehanna University

1858 Weber Way

Selinsgrove, PA 17870

Contact Information:

If you have any questions or encounter any difficulties with your submission, please contact gallery director, Laura Libert

Email: gallery@susqu.edu

Telephone: (570) 372-4059

https://www.susqu.edu/lore-degenstein-gallery/