On Display July 8 – August 15, 2026 at Maryland Hall’s Earl Gallery

Notification was made June 11, 2026

Virtual Awards Ceremony will be July 12 from 3:30 – 4:30 PM via Zoom

Introducing Art in Abstraction 

Abstraction shows that artists do not have to recreate the visible world exactly to say something powerful. Through color, form, gesture, scale, and composition, they can translate feeling, memory, movement, and energy into visual language. In the spirit of artists like Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, abstraction becomes more than a style. It becomes a way of expressing emotion, atmosphere, and experience that can feel just as vivid and meaningful as representation.

MFA (Maryland Federation of Art) exhibitions are blind juried by professional and credentialed art experts. MFA invites all artists to enter an exhibition that welcomes 2D and 3D abstract work for Maryland Hall’s Earl Gallery. This exhibition is open to artists residing in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico. All eligible fine art entries in any media will be considered by the juror. Selected works will be displayed in this MFA-organized exhibition at Maryland Hall’s Earl Gallery in Annapolis, MD from July 8 – August 15, 2026. Exhibition Chair: Amani Freeman

Click this icon to view and print the downloadable prospectus.

Juror: Patrick Schmidt, Abstract Artist and Professor at Washington & Jefferson College

With over 40 solo and 70 group shows throughout the US and Europe, Patrick Schmidt designs for both public and private spaces. His colorful geometric abstract paintings have a deep connection to the mid-20C hard-edge/op-art movements that were developed in France and South America, as well as the Pattern & Decoration Movement from the mid-1970s-1980s in the United States. He see’s pattern functioning as an extension of popular culture which has a connection to economic, social, and ethnic identifiers. From cold war patterning of propaganda to the meditative patterning of an Islamic Mosque.

As a colorist by nature, Schmidt uses pigment to talk about the world, partly as internal dialog, partly as outward observation. Schmidt employs a network of color schemes (what he refers to as “color communities”), to resolve the compositional disparity in his work that mirrors today’s overtly divisive and political environment. Although his work would never be included in a minimalist exhibition, minimalism (visual and sound), correlates to the slow development/contemplation of his work, in the sense of a Buddhist Mandala.

When not in the studio, Schmidt is teaching at Washington & Jefferson College and lives with his wife & dog in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Juror’s Statement

To be published with the awards on July 13.

Awards

Awards designated by the juror total $1,000.