Meet The Judges
Gina Hunt
Gina Hunt creates abstract paintings, sculptures, and site-specific installations as interdisciplinary platforms to research the complexities of vision and the subjectivity of visual experience. A strong fascination with screens as mediators of light has been the focus of her recent work.
Hunt was the 2015-2016 Fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, where she was a practicing artist and faculty member within the Painting and Printmaking Department and exhibited a solo exhibition of new paintings and sculpture. In 2016, Gina was awarded residencies at Hinge Arts (Fergus Falls, Minnesota) and the Badlands National Park (South Dakota). At both residencies, Hunt focused on creating temporary, site-specific sculptural installations integrated within landscape and architecture.
In 2017, Gina presented solo exhibitions at 65Grand (Chicago, Illinois) and University Galleries at Illinois State University (Normal, Illinois). She has participated in recent group shows at Drew University (Madison, New Jersey), Baby Blue Gallery (Chicago, Illinois), Practise (Oak Park, Illinois), DEMO Project (Springfield, Illinois), E. Tay Gallery (New York City, New York), Corridor Projects (Dayton, Ohio), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, Illinois), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, Illinois), Hoffman LaChance Contemporary (St. Louis, Missouri), Front Room Gallery (Brooklyn, New York), and The Soap Factory (Minneapolis, Minnesota), among others.
Hunt received an MFA in Painting from Illinois State University (2015), an MA in Painting from Minnesota State University (2012), and a BFA in Painting, Printmaking, and Art History from Minnesota State University (2009). Her work has been featured in reviews and publications such as The Rib (Boston, Massachusetts), Gulf Times (Doha, Qatar), Salt Hill (Syracuse University), and New American Paintings.
Hunt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
Jason Judd
Jason Judd is the Co-Founder of New Genres Art Space, a progressive and experimental art nonprofit, and an art educator at Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois. He was most recently Executive Director at Freeport Art Museum and Curator of Art at University Galleries of Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He previously was Co-Founder of Sight Specific, an online platform that documents and supports contemporary art programming in and around the central Illinois region, Art Editor for Bite Magazine (online, non-profit project) and Co-Director of Make-Space (a Chicago based artist-run organization) from 2010 to 2015. He has also served as Registrar at the Rockford Art Museum, Exhibitions Assistant at Chicago Artists Coalition, and Curatorial Intern at Gallery 400, University of Illinois Chicago.
Judd approaches curating, teaching, organizing and collaborating with a sense of sincerity, inclusion, experimentation, and resourcefulness.
Contact: jasonajudd@gmail.com
Melissa Oresky
Melissa Oresky was born in Bethesda, Maryland in 1974. She is an artist living and working in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois.
BACKGROUD
MFA, The University of Illinois at Chicago; Chicago, IL (2000)
BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Chicago, IL (1996)
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design; Jerusalem, Israel (1995)
Professor of Painting and Drawing, Illinois State University; Normal, IL, (2002-present)
Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award (2005)