Around the Island

Island artist Culbertson awarded top prize in contest

COURTESY PHOTO ‘Choices 2’ by Janet Culbertson.
COURTESY PHOTO
‘Choices 2’ by Janet Culbertson.

Islander and artist Janet Culbertson was awarded first prize in the Fine Art category of the 2014 ENDANGERED Art & Photography Contest.

Launched in 2012, the contest aims to raise awareness of issues facing animals and the environment and receives entries from all over the world. The winners will be displayed during Art Basel Miami Beach week at the Miami Club Rum Gallery from December 4 to 6.

Ms. Culbertson’s oil collage with iridescent pigments, “Choices 2,” depicts a baboon contemplating an environmental conundrum. Ms. Culbertson comments, “In my art I try to balance the tension between beauty and environmental destruction in portraying the changes in our world.

“Since the sixties I have painted many aspects of nature, the dark volcanic islands of the Galapagos, the fierce beauty of the Grand Canyon, the incredible vanishing animals of Africa. The more I traveled, the more I witnessed these changes worldwide. My response was to paint a Billboard Series and the Industrial Park Series using silver paint, iridescent pigments and dimensional collage materials that parallel the actual detritus of today’s toxic environment.”

All contest entry fees and proceeds, including a portion of the sale of Ms. Culbertson’s painting, will support the Center for Great Apes, a non-profit Florida-based sanctuary for the lifetime care of abused orangutans and chimpanzees.

For more information about the contest and exhibition, visit Art4Apes.com.

Dr. Lindsey Matheson, founder and curator of the contest and a Sag Harbor resident, said she was “so impressed with Janet’s career and how she uses her work to focus attention on environmental issues. A Shelter Island treasure!”