Event News

The Southwest Washington Juried Exhibition Comes to the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery

By Alexis Calma

June 5, 2023

The 2023 Southwest Washington Juried Exhibition comes to the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery from July 10 to Aug. 17, 2023, and will be juried by Nathan Barnes. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, July 13, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

The Southwest Washington Juried Exhibition is organized by the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts and serves area artists by providing a high-quality exhibition opportunity that promotes the region’s creative identity. Artists working in all media and residing in Clark, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, Skamania, Thurston, or Wahkiakum counties are invited to submit an entry for consideration.

More information is available on the college’s Leonor R. Fuller Gallery page.

White and red flowers with green and blue leaves on a yellow background.

Viewer's Choice 2022: Patsy Surh-O'Connell, Beautiful Red, White, and Blue, ink on rice paper, 39"x74"

About Guest Juror Nathan Barnes

Nathan Barnes was born in Salt Lake City and raised in the Mormon faith. His youth featured frequent religious observances, such as personal and public prayer and worship, intertwined with earnest accounts of ecstatic visions and magical healings, Kolobian cosmology, and folklore. It was an immersive milieu that colored many of the artist’s formative experiences.

Nathan received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah and an MFA in Studio Art from Idaho State University. 

Nathan has lived in western Washington since 2013. He is a Professor of Art at Grays Harbor College. He has been twice selected to the Washington State Arts Commission’s public art curator roster. His artwork can be found in a variety of publications, private and public collections, and has been exhibited in solo, group, and juried exhibitions throughout the United States.

Art has been a constant in Nathan’s life. It’s how he has found his way. He often thinks of the titular character in the novel My Name is Asher Lev, whose pursuit of art put him in tension with the religious tradition of his ancestors. But Nathan found a new community in the vast human family that began, so long ago, by painting animals and leaving hand prints on cave walls around the world.