GFA is pleased to announce the Festival jurors who will be selecting artists for more than $92,000 in prize money at the next Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, which will be held March 4 and 5, 2023 at Julian B. Lane Park on Tampa’s downtown riverfront.
Meet Festival Awards Juror Allison Glenn
Allison Glenn is currently Senior Curator at the Public Art Fund in New York City and one of the curators of Counterpublic 2023, a St. Louis-based triennial. She recently garnered critical acclaim for Promise, Witness, Remembrance (2021) at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY that brought together the work of 23 artists to honor the life of Breonna Taylor. Previous curatorial roles include senior curator and director of public art at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; associate curator, contemporary art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; curatorial associate and publications manager for Prospect New Orleans international art triennial Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp; and a curatorial fellowship with the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
One of the country’s leading curators, Glenn is deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Her curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and public spaces through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists. Glenn has also written extensively, and her writing has been featured in catalogs published by The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Prospect New Orleans, Princeton Architectural Press, Studio Museum in Harlem; she has contributed to Artforum, ART PAPERS, Hyperallergic, Fresh Art International, ART21 Magazine, and Gulf Coast Quarterly, among others.
Glenn received dual master’s degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism and Arts Administration and Policy, and a Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography with a co-major in Urban Studies from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Meet Selection Juror Dr. Lesley A. Wolff
Lesley A. Wolff, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Art and Design at The University of Tampa, specializing in art history and museum studies. Her interdisciplinary research on art, food, and heritage in the Americas has appeared in various books and journals and manifested in curatorial projects with venues across the U.S. For more about Dr. Wolff’s research, publications, and curatorial projects, visit www.lesleywolff.com.
Meet Selection Juror Christopher Weeks
Christopher Weeks, is Assistant Professor of Art & Design at Hillsborough Community College where he has served on the full-time faculty since 2007. Alternating between photography and illustration for the past 25 years, his work explores social issues through the lens of contemporary pop culture. His work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibition, including venues in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as Cuauititlan Izcali, Mexico, and Chiang Mai, Thailand. In addition, his work has been reviewed in the NY Times, In These Times Magazine, and Boston’s artsMEDIA Magazine. In 2007, he was awarded a Hillsborough County Individual Artist Grant, and then from 2010 to 2017 he served as an official photographer for Tampa Roller Derby. His roller derby photographs have been published in both 5on5 magazine, and Blood and Thunder magazine. In 2019, a monograph of his roller derby photographs, entitled “Women Who Fly” was published, and is currently available on Amazon. Currently, some of his illustration work is on exhibit until September 29, 2022 as part of the HCC Faculty, Staff & Alumni (FASTA) exhibition in Gallery 221, on the Dale Mabry campus of HCC.
Meet Selection Juror Emily Kapes
Emily Kapes is Curator of Art at The James Museum, managing the collection of Western American and wildlife art on view and the special exhibitions calendar. She is responsible for research and interpretation, collections care, and exhibition design. In addition to coordinating and supplementing borrowed shows, she curated James Michaels: An American Pop Life, The Cultural Connections of Edward S. Curtis, and John Seerey-Lester: A Tribute. Her current research on Chinese immigration to the American West will be the basis for a painting exhibition opening in 2023.
Prior to her current role, Kapes served as art collection curator managing the Tom and Mary James/Raymond James Financial Art Collection for 12 years. She also helped to plan The James Museum starting in 2016, managing the art selection and gallery layout of more than 500 works.
Kapes has judged and juried art competitions around the country. A selection of shows includes Birds in Art (Woodson Art Museum, WI), Jackson Hole Art Auction’s Top Tier (WY), Artists for Conservation Annual Exhibition, Mainsail Art Festival, Melbourne Art Festival, and Quest for the West (Eiteljorg Museum, IN). She earned bachelor’s degrees in art history and in studio art from the College of Charleston.
Meet Selection Juror Christopher Jones
Christopher Jones is the inaugural Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts at The Ringling Museum of Art and holds a curatorial faculty position at Florida State University. He has curated numerous photography and contemporary art exhibitions including Territories: Photography, Space, and Power; Approaching the Border; Hank Willis Thomas: Branded/Unbranded; Coco Fusco: Twilight; Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Specters and Parables; and most recently Metadata: Rethinking Photography in the 21st Century. Prior to the Ringling, Christopher was Assistant Curator of Prints of Photographs at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. He has completed doctoral coursework work at the University of Florida in the History of Photography and received his MA in art history from the University of New Mexico. He has taught courses on the history of art and the history of photography at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL and at New College, Sarasota.
Meet Emerging Artists Juror Selena Román
Selina Román is an artist based in Tampa, Florida. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Florida in 2013. Prior, she worked as a newspaper reporter and investigator. Her work is in the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota; the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs, and the Tampa Museum of Art.
Román has exhibited at institutions such as The Ringling Museum of Art and Tampa Museum of Art, and internationally at Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica and the Universidad del Sagrado Corazon in Puerto Rico. Her work was also featured at Brighton Photo Fringe in the UK during the 2016 Brighton Photo Biennial. She received a Hillsborough County Artist Grant in 2017 and 2021. She was also invited to participate in Review Santa Fe 2019 and Critical Mass 2020. She has taught university courses in art and photography, most recently at the University of Tampa and Hillsborough Community College. She currently teaches photography at The Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. This year, she curated the show The Company We Keep: Photographs of Our Complex Relationships with Animals for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Tampa. She is also part of The Peninsularium, an immersive, Florida-themed art experience. Her lens-based work explores ideas of femininity, perception, liminality, memory, place, and how the invisible offers more answers than what’s visible.
