Art Pick-Up is July 4 from noon – 3pm

View Online Exhibit Here

Exhibit Statement: The Gualala Salon exhibit is a juried and judged fine art show and can be viewed online and in person. The purpose of this exhibit is to showcase outstanding visual art and artists without regard to the type of media.  There is no theme for artwork entered in the Gualala Salon & Salon des Refuses, but the show’s concept is based on the original Paris Salon des Refusés exhibition, which took place in Paris in 1863, showing works that had been rejected by the official Paris Salon judges. These judges represented the French Academy and were advocates of a traditional, orthodox style of painting and sculpture. In 1863, they rejected almost 3,000 pieces of work, including many now considered masterpieces such as Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe and Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 1. The resulting furor led Emperor Napoleon Ill to mandate that a second exhibition (dubbed the “Salon des Refusés”) be organized, so that the public might judge the merits of the artwork themselves.

The NCAG Board identifies, recruits and selects the show’s judges. The judges decide which artwork will be accepted and shown in the main Burnett Gallery. All work not juried into the Salon by the judges is displayed in the Salon des Refuses, located in the Jacob Foyer. Works in the Salon des Refuses are eligible for a popular vote award. Voting ends at Noon, June 30, 2022. Thus, all artwork submitted into the show is exhibited.

Many artists save their best new art for this exhibit, which showcases outstanding visual art without regard to type of media. The award prizes are the largest offered on the coast. Read about this year’s judges below.

DREW FAGAN received a BFA from Stanford University. His earlier abstract works have been shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the original Spago Restaurant in Hollywood and in other single and group shows. After a long career in advertising, he sold his business and began painting full time as a realist in mid-2004. Since then, he has added many successes to his credit, including 16 solo shows, 17 juried shows, 14 group shows and many national and local awards. Fagan’s studio is just north of Gualala on California’s Mendocino County coast. He is an Associate Member of the National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic, a Signature Member of The International Society of Acrylic Painters, an Associate Member of Oil Painters of America and an Artist Member of the California Art Club. His work has been featured in American Art Collector and The Artists Magazine and can be found in numerous private and corporate collections in the United States, South America, Europe and Japan.

Kristin Otwell comes from a family of artists and has been making art since she could hold a crayon. Fortunate to have lived in many places including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Taiwan, she returned to the US in 1968, receiving a BA in fine arts from Mills College in Oakland and studying biological illustration at UC Berkeley. For several years she worked at a school for severely disabled children. Her professional art career began in 1983 with a showing of botanical watercolors at The Nature Company in Berkeley followed by one-person shows at the Oakland Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Otwell moved to the Mendocino Coat in 1985. In 1992 she and her business partner Joan Burleigh founded the Art Explorers, a nonprofit program that serves artists with developmental disabilities.  She served as co-director and teacher there until her retirement in 2016. One of the founding members of Partners Gallery 1999 she considers her long association with this gallery to be her “anchor. “I think of watercolor as my first and true love, but I have branched out into collage and mixed media over the years, creating work that is inspired by the beauty of the natural world around me.”