National Midyear Exhibition at The Butler Institute of American Art STROKES of GENIUS

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Butler Institute of American Art today announced the winners of its annual National Midyear Exhibition.

Gary Erbe, an artist and curator form New Jersey, was juror of the exhibition, which is now in its 75th year. About 100 works were selected for the exhibit, which opens Tuesday and runs through Aug. 28. It is open to artists living in the United States and its territories.

The top Juror’s Choice awards went to William Kennon of New York for his oil/linen painting “Rowhouse at Night”; George Mauersberger of Cleveland for his pastel “Hed II”; and Will Wilson of San Francisco for his oil painting “Alchemy.”

John Randall Younger of Ivy, Va., won the Allied Artists of America Award for his oil painting “Train”; Paul Hamilton of Granville, Ohio, won the Phil Desind Award for his oil painting “Ohio Steel, Warren, Ohio”; and Holly Hope Banks of Clearwater, Fla., won the Dianne B. Bernhard Art Spirit Purchase Award for her pastel “Artist’s Mother.”

Honorable mention awards went to Michael Abren of Youngstown for his mixed-media piece “Ancient Sunlight II”; Carole Conatser of Boardman for her encaustic “Splat”; Michael H. Hockenbury of Swoyersville, Pa., for his oil painting “Sounds of Nonsense”; Esther Antler of Columbus for her pastel “High Tea”; Angela Cunningham of Philadelphia for her oil painting “Jessica”; and Joel Carson Jones for his oil painting “More Than You Can Chew.”