Portals

Now Open for Entry

Deadline to Enter is April 5, 2023

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Introducing Portals

 Click this icon to view and print the downloadable prospectus.

Juror: Melissa Oresky, Professor of Painting and Drawing at Illinois State University

Melissa Oresky’s art practice is rooted in painting and collage, and her primary production is mixed media works on canvas and paper. Oresky is interested in landscape, and considers it as a concept that bridges painting, lived experience, environmental consciousness, and imagination. Working fluidly between abstraction and representation, past work has focused on aspects of or locations within landscape, including glaciers, deserts, formal gardens, mineral structures, the colors of daylight, and the kinesthetic experience of viewing the ground or the sky while moving. Her current work is focused broadly on plants. While looking at plants as direct subject matter for artworks, she also enacts what could be considered a plantlike process in the studio by “growing” paintings or collages through iterative processes over long periods of time. Her studio activities follow other aspects of plant being such as reflecting, filtering, and absorbing light to produce color and creating and reacting to material, atmospheric, and spatial conditions. Oresky often takes over a year to complete a piece, while working on many ongoing pieces in the studio at once. She wants her work to convey the aliveness of plants, which humans tend to regard as objects rather than fully living organisms.

Oresky has shown her work in painting, collage, and video nationally and internationally, with recent shows at Boundary Space, Chicago; Tripod Space Project, Busan, South Korea; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL; Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN; and K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco. She also co-organized and participated in the project Collage Office, an experimental, charitable platform for artists to make work for visitors by appointment at The Franklin, Chicago.

Oresky holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has attended residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine and The Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico. Originally from Maryland, she lives and works in Normal, Illinois where she is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at Illinois State University. Learn more and see her work at melissaoresky.com.

Terms of Entry

• Entry is open to all artists internationally. Please refer to the complete U.S. Foreign Policy Compliance Statement on our website.
• Entering this exhibition indicates understanding and agreement on the part of the artist with the conditions stated herein and with (a) MFA’s approved Statement of Equity and Diversity and (b) MFA’s General Guidelines. MFA may determine work ineligible if entry guidelines are not followed.
• Images of accepted works may be used at the sole discretion of MFA for promotional purposes including, but not limited to: the invitation, catalog, website, social media, or a subsequent year’s prospectus. Images will include attribution wherever possible.
• Work cannot be withdrawn before the end of the event.

Liability

• MFA shall not be liable for any special or consequential damages that result from the use of, or inability to use MFA’s online exhibition gallery.

Awards

• Cash awards total $500.

Entry Requirements

• All work must be entered by uploading JPEG images through MFA’s online entry system. Set pixel dimension between 1,500 and 3,000 pixels on the longest side. File size may be no more than 5 MB.
• MFA does not display watermarks; artists display at their own risk.
• For video submissions: upload a still frame from your video and put a public YouTube or Vimeo link to the video in the “media” section.
• To enter online, you will need an MFA account that includes an email address and a password. There is no charge to create an MFA account.

Entry Fee

• 1 or 2 entries $35 (MFA Members $20). Additional 4 entries $5 each. Entry fees are non-refundable.

Work

• All entries must be original and completed solely by the artist’s hand. A maximum of 6 original works created within the past 3 years may be entered. If artwork is part of a limited edition, please state total number in the edition.
• Work previously exhibited at MFA Curve Gallery is not eligible for re-entry.
• There is no size limit for online exhibitions.

Sales

• MFA’s Online Sales Gallery is provided to North American artists to sell their work. Only artists in the 48 contiguous United States may set a price. MFA will reimburse up to $35 in shipping costs to those artists for online sales shipments if a receipt is provided. All other artists must enter Price on Request (POR) and purchase inquiries will be referred by MFA to the artist.
• Artists will retain 80% from sales (85% for MFA Members). MFA will retain 20% commission (15% for MFA Members) on any work sold through MFA. Artists will be responsible for fulfillment of sales.
• Work must be for sale. Work may be set to Price on Request (POR).

Exhibition Schedule

• Feb 1 Online Entry Open for Submissions
• Apr 5 Entry Deadline
• May 9 Notification @ 5 PM
• Jun 15 Exhibition Opens Online
• Jul 1 Awards Announced @ 5 PM
• Jul 31 Last Day of Online Exhibition

Notification

All artists will receive notification by email. Artists who have unsubscribed from MFA’s emails will not receive notification. Accepted artists and artwork will also be posted on MFA’s website.
The notice to accepted artists will include specific details and may vary from the prospectus.
Please set your email account to recognize info@mdfedart.org.