2023 Art Show Jurors

Al Gury is an artist, educator and writer. He is a professor of Painting and Drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. 

As a painter, Al explores the tension between representation and the formal possibilities of color, composition and content. Harmony and visual poetry are a focus of his interpretations of nature.

As an educator, he teaches many courses on painting, drawing and art history, as well as art education methods. He is also a lecturer at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

As a writer, he has written three books on art methods and art history, “Alla Prima: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Direct Painting,” “Color for Painters: A Guide to Traditions and Practice” and “Foundations of Drawing: A Practical Guide to Art History, Tools, Techniques, and Styles.” He has also authored dozens of articles for museums and art publications in the U.S. and Europe. 

Gury is a practicing painter, with regular one-person exhibitions at the F.A.N. Gallery in Philadelphia, as well as galleries and museums in other states. Over the years, he has been involved in many community and social justice activities, including working with homeless persons, inner-city youth and the Mural Arts Project in Philadelphia. He is a cat foster parent and advocate for animal rescue and nursing care via the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society.

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Jill A. Rupinski is a Professor of Painting and Drawing in the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Degree Program, Chairperson of the Fine Arts Department and Coordinator of the Annual Student Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), . Jill received a Four-Year Certificate from PAFA in 1977 and a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art, in 1981. In 1985, Jill attended a one-month residency in painting at the Vermont Studio School, in Johnson, VT.

‍Jill'’s art focuses on both portraiture and landscape, and she has painted many commissioned portraits. Narrative content is woven into her portraiture and landscape imagery. For the past two decades she has drawn inspiration from contemporary issues and events specifically for her landscapes. Once her idea is formed, she works from drawings, oil sketches, memory and imagination using classical compositional devices and traditional materials. In addition to oil painting, Jill works in soft pastel. In the 1980’s she developed mixed media and wet pastel techniques promoting these methods that make pastel safer to handle, provide for more diverse mark making, allow faster application of under-painting with surface coverage, and offer greater stability.

‍Among her many awards, she was selected in 2014 to participate in the Senior Artist Initiative Oral History Project and Video Documentary, and in 2013 she received a Ffaculty Ggrant from PAFA to support plein- air teaching and travel in France,. iIn 1997 Jill received the Percy Owens Memorial Award for a Distinguished Pennsylvania Artist from the Fellowship of PAFA. Affiliation by jury 1988/89 to the Creative Artists Network, and in In 1989 participated in an artist exchange in Spain, culminating in a Spanish Exchange Exhibition at the Port of History Museum, Penn’s Landing, Phila.delphia, PA. As a student of PAFA, Jill received a Cresson Travel Scholarship in 1976 and the first Philadelphia Mayor'’s Award from PAFA in 1977. Jill'’s work resides in the collections of the University of Pennsylvania, College of Physicians, Pennsylvania Hospital, Federal Reserve Bank, and Arcadia, Colgate, and Villanova Universities. Jill is represented by Cerulean Arts Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. 

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TK Smith is a Philadelphia-based curator, writer and cultural historian. He is the Assistant Curator: Art of the African Diaspora at the Barnes Foundation. His writing has been published in Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art Papers. Currently, Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware.

Syd Carpenter is a sculptor living in Philadelphia. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Swedish National Museum, Tang Teaching Museum of Skidmore College, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the James A. Michener Art Museum and Woodmere Art Museum. She has been a resident artist at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Craft, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Vermont Studio Center, and The Watershed Center. Her awards and fellowships include a United States Artists Fellowship, Anonymous Was a Woman, Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Leeway Foundation Grants, National Endowment for the Arts, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships.

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Lauren Sandler is a ceramic artist and educator based in Philadelphia. Her work examines the myriad chronicles told by objects as a means to explore stories that have been erased, distorted and rewritten. Sandler exhibits nationally, and presents talks, workshops, and publishes work concerning contemporary and historic issues in ceramics. She holds an MFA in Ceramics from Penn State University and undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and Ceramics from Ithaca College and SUNY New Paltz. She served on the Board of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts as Director at Large from 2019-2022 and is currently Associate Professor and Program Head of Ceramics at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University.