PAINT ANNAPOLIS 2026 JURORS

Selection Juror:
Gavin Glakas

Gavin Glakas grew up in Bethesda, MD and studied at Washington University in St. Louis and the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

​After graduation, Glakas worked on Capitol Hill as a Senate staffer and planned to go to law school, but after an eight-month illness culminating in the removal of a tumor from his lung at the age of 24, he decided to pursue his lifelong ambition of a career as an artist.

​Glakas’ portraits hang in the permanent collections of the United States Capitol, the Virginia State Capitol, the CIA, universities, museums and numerous collections both public and private.

​He is represented by Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA and Charleston, SC, and Palm Avenue Fine Art in Sarasota, FL.

​He has won numerous honors for his artwork, including awards from the Portrait Society of America, the Art Renewal Center, the Plein Air Salon and the Butler Institute of American Art. His paintings have been featured on NBC News and in The Washington Post, as well as magazines and other media, and exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the country.

​Glakas lives in McLean, VA, with his wife, Jasmine, and two barnstorming sons, Nico and Rory.

Awards Juror: Jill Basham

Contemporary landscape artist Jill Basham was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Columbia, Maryland. Basham comes from a family with a multi-generational history of artists. She grew up with an interest in art, yet it was not until later in adulthood that she began oil painting. Once she began, she has never looked back.

Basham is known for her plein air and studio landscape paintings, celebrated for their rich atmosphere and expressive sense of place. While she often paints outdoors on location, she also develops her work in the studio. Deeply inspired by the natural beauty of the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding areas, she remains equally drawn to any scene that evokes an emotional response, whether close to home or discovered in her travels.

Jill has been honored to participate in and earn numerous awards in national plein air events and art exhibitions. Presently, her work is in corporate and private collections as well as in the permanent collections of museums. She is on the Board of Directors for Oil Painters of America. In addition, she is a signature member of both Oil Painters of America as well as The American Society of Marine Artists. Jill is also an artist member of The American Impressionist Society, as well as two historic art institutions; The Salmagundi Club, NYC, and The Washington Society of Landscape Painters.

Jill now resides near the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where the local landscape continues to inspire her work. She is drawn to any scene that sparks an emotional response, allowing her to translate the beauty and atmosphere of a place onto canvas.

Public Artist Jurors: Peter Nesbett and Shelly Bancroft

Peter Nesbett and Shelly Bancroft are curators, art historians, editors, and arts administrators.

Peter is the Director of the /m, Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Art Museum at St. John’s College. The only nationally accredited academic art museum in Maryland, /m’s mission is to ask persistent and timely questions about the human experience, through art and with extraordinary artists. Such questions include, “Can Nature make Art?” and “Can art be bound?”. Previously, Peter held positions at the Washington Project for the Arts, Pew Charitable Trusts, Seattle Art Museum, and Christie’s auction house in New York.

Shelly is the founder, President and co-director of Triple Candie, a nonprofit organization that produces art exhibitions. From 2001 to 2010, Triple Candie ran a 6,000 sq. ft. gallery in Harlem. From 2010 to 2020, it made exhibitions for museums in Boston, Detroit, Paris, and Prague. It also produced projects in unconventional venues, such as alleyways and street vitrines. It now produces exhibitions in the windows of former hamburger restaurant on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Together, Peter and Shelly, who are married, have co-curated more than 200 exhibitions and co-edited a dozen books and catalogues. They have lived in Annapolis since 2022.

Dueling Brushes Juror:
Abigail McBride

Compelled to chronicle the life and world around her, Abigail Faye McBride paints with the heart of a poet. Her oil paintings and charcoal drawings bear witness to a time, person or passing glimmer of light. Abigail paints landscape, figure and still life working interchangeably with brush and palette knife. Collectors, nationally and internationally, appreciate the color, mood and elegance of her work.

A consummate Cape School colorist, the draftsmanship in her work is born of an academic interest in the portrait and figure. Her work blends traditional subject matter with modern design sensibilities. She is part of a new breed of perceptual painters working from direct observation be it plein air or in the studio. Though often free of narrative, her work is grounded in the present day as a contemporary interpretation of genre painting.

McBride has developed a reputation as a dynamic teacher and mentor. She hosts online classes with the option of joining tightly limited critique groups. She also teaches at Anne Arundel Community College and selected traveling workshops. She is advancing principles of visual understanding acquired from years of study.

Early national recognition by American Artist Magazine helped launch Abigail into gallery representation. Using skills gleaned as one of the founders of the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association and the Paint Annapolis plein air competition she co-launched Paint the Town, the first plein air event in Chesapeake City MD. Her work is featured in the 100 Plein Air Painters of the Mid-Atlantic large format book by Gary Pendleton, Shiffer Press. She is represented The Station Gallery in Delaware, Berkley Gallery in Virginia, Benfield Gallery and McBride Gallery in Maryland and The Egeli Gallery in Massachusetts. Abigail also shows her work in institutions and museum exhibitions.

Paint the Bay Juror:
Laura Pasquini

As the director of the Corcoran’s Youth and Family Programs, Pasquini has revamped and revitalized the gallery’s approach to education with the aim of “empowering kids to confidence.”

Most notable among her achievements is the growth in Corcoran ArtReach – an after school program that collaborates with community centers to reach 150-200 disadvantaged students a year. In one evaluation of the program, a parent called Corcoran Artreach “the best youth arts program in the area.”

This success has also brought Pasquini recognition, most recently as the winner of the 2009 UMBC Outstanding Alumni of the Year award for a graduate in the visual and performing arts. Pasquini points to a junior year internship at UMBC in the university’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture as a key moment in choosing a career in arts education, one which she says “changed my career and life outlook.”

Working in conjunction with Arbutus Elementary School, Pasquini designed a program to introduce and integrate students into the world of art that included talks, tours of the UMBC Fine Arts Gallery and the creation of original works of art by students. The important thing, Pasquini recalls, was to find and reinforce connections between art and the students’ experiences.

Art on the Avenue Juror: ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Matt Klos

Matt Klos received his MFA in painting from University of MD, College Park and his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). He is a recipient of four Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council (2019, 2016, 2012 and 2008). His work has been featured in dozens of group and solo exhibitions including a solo at the Prince Street Gallery in Chelsea, NY in 2011. He was awarded first place in the Bethesda Painting Awards in 2007 and received an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in 2001. Klos currently teaches drawing and painting at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD and has served as a guest lecturer/critic at various institutions including the New York Academy of Art, Boston University, College of William & Mary, Towson University, University of Missouri, and Mount Gretna School of Art.

The Chemulpo Club Museum in Incheon, South Korea hosted him for a solo exhibition and landscape painting demo last summer. He also had a solo exhibition and curated a group show of seven painters, both titled “A Light in Many Rooms” at Steven Frances Fine Art in Lynchburg, VA in 2025. He is currently working on an exhibition of interiors that will be exhibited at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland in November 2026. He is a member of the still life painting collective, Zeuxis, www.zeuxis.us and is part of the Perceptual Painters collective. His work can be found at www.mattklos.com or on Instagram @mattklospainting.