Viridian Artists 20th Annual International Juried Show had almost 500 entries from all over the world from Turkey, Madagascar, Israel , Belgium and Dubai etc., as well as the US. As Elisabeth Sussman, Curator of the Whitney Museum and juror of the competition said :

“Judging the entries of an international competition is for the juror an invitation to the unknown, the unanticipated and the unexpected ……..The task is to identify work of promise from a very large field. Undoubtedly, good work will go unnoticed, but hopefully, surprises and delights will be encountered.

Spotting trends is a difficult task. The juror looks mainly for quality. But, if pressed, what I took away this year, was a tendency to embrace pop culture, mass media, and junk and to recycle it or reinterpret it to make an inventive art work ……. As a result of artists’ embrace of and absorption in the world they live in, this year’s exhibition feels extremely lively, upbeat, and audience friendly.”

And the winners are:
1st Prize of $500 : LESLIE SHERYLL constructs "Urban Monsoon" of plastic bottles
2nd Prize of $200: AKIYUKI INA's "Trophy" is built of vinyl records
3rd Prize of $100: HARRY GONNELLA and SHAUN SEWTER a giclee "Blue Eyes"

FINALIST who will also exhibit:

Lisa Bagwell /Jennifer Beinhacker /Jill Marleah Bell / Black Pinto Horse&Monte Yellow Bird Sr. Craig Blankenhorn / Steven Falk / Christian Faur / Elizabeth Fox / Stuart Friedman Eric Galandak / Sun-Young Jin / Kiseok Kim / David Lambert Andrea Land / Jason Lascu Nancy Legner / Kito Mbiango / Naoko Okabe Jean Pike / Beverly Rippel / Audrey Shachnow and Beverly Y. Smith.

CD slide presentation Juror's Choice :
Viridian Artists will also present a CD slide presentation of Runner-ups: Laurie Joan Aron / Marika Berlind / Rachel Burgess / Jane Carney / Peter DePelsmacker Lauren Ennist / Julia Fernandez Pol / C. B. Forsythe / Carla Hansen /Travis Head / Diane Huff Diane Hurwitz- Specht / Benny Katz / Maureen Kelleher / June Kim / Mali Lasker Debra E. Levie / Nic Lyons / Naz Shahrokh / Michelle Stone and Susan Trees.

CD slide presentation Director's Choice
The following were chosen by the Viridian Director, Barbara Neski: Niamh Butler / Sungmo Cho / Richard W. Dolan / Liz Alpert Fay / Victor Gontcharov Joleen Grussing / Marcella Hackbardt / Lannie Hart/ Brian Heeter / Selin Kocagoncu Marius Lehene / Jeane McGrail / Trudy Montgomery / Howard Myers / Meaghan Sorce Ty Smith / Kate Torgersen / Leslie Tucker / Ian Turner / Sabrina & Jeff Williams.