12^th Annual ARC Salon

ARC is pleased to present the winners and finalists of the 12^th International ARC Salon Competition. This year we have 1,006 finalist works by 640 artists from 63 countries, representing 32% of works submitted. ARC has acquired 14 new works for the ARC collection, valued at over $130,000. This year our Best in Show went to Tenaya Sims, for his painting of Semillas, meaning seeds. A large 99 x 70 inch symbolic work, this painting's imagery brings to the mind of the viewer ideas about the creation of life, as figures in the fiery droplets fall into the ocean planting the seeds of primordial life. Sims recollects a childhood memory of burning a ballpoint pen and watching the ink burn into fiery droplets as the possible inspiration for this painting. The Bouguereau Award went to our runner up for best in show, The Performance, by Nick Alm. This Sargent-esque work, inspired by Burlesque dance, captures subtle human emotion in dramatic lights and darks.

The winner of The Da Vinci Initiative Award for the Young Aspiring Artist, ARC's independent side-competition for realist high-school artwork, went to 15 year old Ray Wanda Totanes, for her painting, Perception of Self. She has studied at Artalyer Workshops and Studio, located in Quezon City, in the Philippines where she has been apprenticing under Mr. Alfred Galvez for the past two years. About the work, Ray says, "In this piece I look upon my 15 year old self without holding back any criticisms as I am aware that this girl is only just a fleeting memory of the past immortalized in an image." We are inspired to see this powerful self-portrait created by a 15 year old student, proving that high-school aged students are capable of learning these skill based techniques and incorporating them into unique images with a unique voice.

In addition to these awards we have two museum purchase awards given out by the MEAM museum in Barcelona Spain, which went to Dirk Dzimirsky for his drawing titled Happy Birthday, Tristesse, and Mathias Bader's sculpture of Sitting Man. These works will go into the MEAM's permanent collection. Also, three magazines, Fine Art Connoisseur, PleinAir Magazine, and Collection Magazine, have given out a total of 7 awards to artists, and there will be a featured article on each of these artists in these prominent publications. The Oil Painters of America, an ARC Allied Organization®, has participated in the ARC Salon this year by awarding a $1,000 prize to Michele Del Campo, for his painting, The Argument, which embodies the beliefs and goals of the OPA. We will also be working with Rehs Contemporary Galleries and Arcadia Contemporary to mount an exhibition and sale at each of these influential establishments for artists chosen by these galleries in coordination with ARC, selected from ARC Salon Finalists. These shows will be held in 2017 or early 2018, exact dates to be announced.

A big thank you goes out to our 11 judges who have donated their time and efforts in selecting in addition to Best in Show, the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place awards in our eight categories as well as our special awards for Most Ambitious Work, Best Nude, Best Social Commentary, Best Trompe l'Oeil, and our Dual Category Awards. Lastly ARC Chairman Fred Ross has selected six Chairman's Choice Awards and the ARC Staff has selected an additional eight works as ARC Staff Awards.

We will now be starting the selection of our approximately 75 works for the live version of the ARC Salon that will travel from the Salmagundi Club, New York, New York where it will be on exhibition from May 12^th - June 1^st of 2017 to The MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Spain where it will be on view from September 23^rd - November 27^th, 2017. While in Barcelona, the ARC Salon's works will be mounted at the same time the MEAM mounts its 9^th Figurativas Painting and Sculpture Competition. The MEAM competition is organized by the Foundation of the Art and the Artists, which is, along with the ARC Salon, the other most important competition for representational art in the Western world. We will be holding a joint award ceremony for the winners of the ARC Salon and Figurativas Competitions in September of 2017 at the MEAM. We will be announcing which works will join the exhibition throughout the planning process. Updates and additional information about the live exhibition of the ARC Salon can be found on the Live Exhibition page.

For our 13^th International ARC Salon we will be introducing a 9^th category for Plein Air works. We are excited to bring attention to this special genre, style and technique, which deserves its own recognition as a major component of the representational art movement. We will also be furthering involvement from our ARC Allied Organizations and other like-minded artist groups by allowing artists to affiliate themselves with these groups during the entry process. This will allow for additional publicity for these organizations by showing finalist and winner affiliations when we post the results of the ARC Salon. We will be accepting entries to the 13^th International ARC Salon from August 1^st — November 15^th, 2017.