By Diane Wilson
Judge, Creative Expressions 2021

It's a privilege to participate in this show, though I'm deeply conflicted about judging art. Painting is a process, not a product, and it doesn't yield to quantification or to the merit system.

To not see your work in person is a loss. After all, the subject of painting is the physicality of the paint itself.

Painting derives its energy from unresolved conflict. It has the capacity to make us nervous. Your work has made visible a broad range of precarious emotional and spacial ambiguity. The subject of painting is the paint itself. Without a subject that gnaws at us, we easily succumb to decoration.

Ultimately, painting returns us to the vulnerability of the human condition.