The deYoung Open | Martha’s Vinyard Drawing Prize
The Soul of America. Pencil on paper. 11" x 8"
Artist's Statement
"The Soul of America " is both an emotional self-portrait and a portrait of a fragmented America. This past summer, my neighborhood stepped out into porches and balconies at 8pm every night. We “howled” to each other. Voices from people close and far away made us fell less alone. We knew that we were going through this together. Although Americas were sheltered in place and self-isolated, the human soul cried out. There is a deep primal need for connection. Since we could not touch physically our voices connected us with echoes of love! I howled and truly felt the resilience of the human spirit. In that moment, I knew there was hope.”
- Diana Belenky
The Soul of America SOLD and was featured in:
deYoung Museum: 125th year anniversary Juried open-call
My work has been selected by the De Young Museum as part of its upcoming exhibition! The exhibition is in celebration of San Francisco Fine Arts Museum’s 125th anniversary and themed to reflect the “edge” of our times. @deyoungmuseum is one of SF’s most beautiful and prestigious art museums and is in the top 10 most visited art museums in the entire country!
“The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are hosting The de Young Open, a juried community art exhibition of submissions by artists who live in the nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Works of art in The de Young Open are hung “salon-style,” installed edge to edge and floor to ceiling, which enables a maximum number of works to be displayed. The de Young filled the 12,000-square-foot Herbst Exhibition Galleries with 877 artworks by 762 Bay Area artists in The de Young Open.”
Second Place Winner: Martha’s Vinyard Drawing Prize 2020 Theme: Fortitude
The Martha's Vineyard Drawing Prize is a competition established to encourage the pursuit of excellence in drawing. The competition is sponsored by artist Elizabeth R. Whelan, an artist living on the island of Martha's Vineyard. She believes that solid drawing skills are not only useful in creating artwork of all types but can also be employed in the creation of beautiful drawings ranging from the immediate sketch to the fine classical rendering, from the contemporary abstract to the exploration of a subject without the distraction of color.