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Organized by:

City of Fabriano - UNESCO Creative City

Paper and Watermark Museum

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The jury was unanimous in voting the following three artist for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes :

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1st Prize: Andrey Zadorine (The Netherlands)

Painting: ‘Evening Light’

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2nd Prize: Marc Folly (France)

Painting : ‘The Bancel Foundry’

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3rd Prize: Dean Mitchell (USA)

Painting :   ‘Pondering’

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At an online meeting the jurors all expressed admiration for the winning paintings both as demonstrations of masterful watercolour painting and as expressive images.

All of them using strong tone and careful composition to create drama and emotion, they are paintings of substance, sensitivity, weight, warmth and intrigue. Evidence of dedicated personal journeys in search of unique ‘visual voices.’ Seeing these images leave us wanting more!

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Andrei Zadorine’s painting: Evening Light

A tactile painting. Our attention is grabbed by the drama of strong tone and taken via delicate contours, suggestive of landscape, into intimate corners where limbs, fingers and reflections touch.

The intimacy and warmth of the figure contrasting with the sense of stormy weather ‘outside’ adds to the intigue of this sonorous image.Andrei painted this painting specifically for Fabriano!

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Marc Folly’s painting: The Bancel Foundry

An energetic conversation between conflicting light sources creates a grid in which our eyes flick from one detail to another, from fingers to faces, from tools to sparkling elipses.

A delightful abstration of vigorous marks, difused edges and unexpected colour dropped into a limited palette, it as though we have just walked into the painting, bottom right, as it is happening.

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Dean Mitchell’s painting: Pondering

Less is more and with a careful, yin yang, composition of light and dark, the front of the figure, with jigsawed light and dark shapes, takes the eye to the thoughtful points of pondering touch. Dean’s complex and beautiful drawing of the profiled face and hands succinctly create a group of thoughtful glimpsed moments which contrast with the shaft of dark hair, handbag handles and stripes, triangulating up from below. (Are there references to Vermeer and Baldovinetti here ?)

 

Special Mentions were also made of the next twelve artist receiving a high number of votes:

Thomas Brent Funderburk, USA 

Patricia Guzman, Mexico

Júlio Jorge, Portugal

Liu Bing, China

Ada Florek, France

Chien Chung-Wei, Taiwan 

Li Yichun, China

Nicolás López, Peru 

Denis Petrulenkov, Russia 

Vsevolod Sharko, Ukraine

Carrie Waller, USA 

Josefia Lemon, Australia

Jury members were keen to say that, though not receiving the highest number of votes, artist’s created many compelling and engaging images.

Paintings whether, quieter, more reflective, challenging, elusive, abstract, esoteric, on continued viewing, appealed to different Jurors and fixed themselves in their minds.

In this exhibition we see the works of numerous artists widely known and respected at home and abroad. 

The Fabriano Watercolour Biennale also aims to provide a platform for deserving new and young artists to become known in the international watercolour community.

Artists working in all media including oil painters, sculptors and designers designers, in addition to those identified as ‘watercolourists’, are active in

using watercolour paint while pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, and it is these people that coming editions of The Fabriano Biennale aims to encourage.

The jurors were concerned that the Fabriano Biennale should reflect all modes of current watercolour expression. 

It must be emphasised that all invitee artists received good shares of the votes with little space between them which underlines the exceptional quality of this years entries.

One of the invitees, Kim Minichiello from Florida, sadly, died prematurely at the end of July. We pass on our condolensces to her family and to the American watercolour community in which she was an active inspiration, and will be missed...

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