We received a record number of entries to this juried members' exhibition: 375 artworks were submitted by 161 artists! Only 74 artworks were selected. Three awards will be chosen by Laura Shabott, the juror, during the reception on February 6. Funding provided by the Arthur McMurtry Fund.​​​

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Message from the Juror:

Any number of exhibitions could have been created because the quality of the ​artworks submitted was very high​. I built this particular show from three pillars: movement, mark making and visceral experience. ​Whether the genre was abstract, en plein air, realist, figurative, or somewhere in between​, I looked for movement in the work; a life force or spark. ​The hardest part of this process was having to pass on so many pieces of art embodying that jeux de vivre. 

My second pillar was the element of composition. I teach painting and drawing through the eyes of the late Hans Hofmann, Fritz Bultman, Helen Frankenthaler, and contemporary Robert Henry; icons of Provincetown’s art colony. This was a factor in the selection process. Did the bones of the piece, its simplest parts, work? Last, a third fundamental, one​ almost impossible to define, was the visceral experience of grouping works together to create a narrative. What I know about curation I learned through a decade of gallery assistance at Berta Walker’s gallery. She taught me that artworks talk to each other when creating a show. 

I hope that you like Why Cape Cod?, whether you were ​juried in or not, and know that I saw great promise and joy in all the works submitted.

-Laura Shabott​