Sheridan Prize for Art

The 2021 Sheridan Prize for Art Archive

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The 2021 Sheridan Prize for Art Archive

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THE SHERIDAN
PRIZE FOR ART

The First ever regional art prize in the San Francisco Bay Area

The Sheridan Prize for Art is the first regional art prize in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Prize for Art has accepted artwork from all Bay Area artists from September 7 – November 8, 2022. IT IS NOW CLOSED TO ARTISTS ENTERING MORE WORK for the second year of this historic, regional art prize. The winning works of art and honorable mentions are all viewable if you visit the links below.

The Prize for Art features art submitted from artists who live, work or study in the 9 San Francisco Bay Area counties. The majority of artists served and who have participated reside, work or study in Alameda County which has the highest percentage of artists in the Bay Area.  However the Prize for Art welcomes ALL artists from the 8 other Bay Area counties of San Francisco, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. 

There are 10 interesting and different Categories of Art and Artists artwork was submitted to. Each group is juried and awarded independently from the others.  Artists submitted up to 8 total entries that apply to those Categories, as they chose. They are: Painting/Drawing/Murals, Sculpture, Photography, Printmaking, Experimental Art, Women Artists, Artists of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+ Artists, Incarcerated Artists (who participate free) and Immigrant Artists.

Two more Categories of Art with prizes will be offered as well that will not be juried but will instead be VOTED on, an Artists’ Choice voted by Participating Artists who have Signed Up and also a Peoples’ Choice voted by Viewers who have Signed Up, after the Prize for Art closes from November 9 – November 21. These 12 total groups or categories are viewable, just visit the links below.

If you are a participating artist I wish you great good luck but more than winning a prize it is the participation and inclusion of your work that truly counts in building an entirely new stage for your work and the work of Bay Area artists that has never existed before. But here is one of the biggest innovations of the Sheridan Prize for Art: There are 73 awards of between $500 and $100! Or $500-$100 off Bay Area artist services.  This is a huge increase in the number of awards compared to the prizes from other competitions.

So if you love and support art plan to visit here again often. Participating artists pay only $10.00 for each submitted work, which will be viewable on this website, along with any external links they wished to provide and a 500 word artist’s statement if they like. You and everyone else will see your work permanently on this website under the category or group you chose your work to be seen in.

There will be prizewinners in each of the 12 categories of art and also Honorable Mentions for a total of 73 awards in the only Art Prize dedicated to acknowledging, celebrating and showcasing the best art of the San Francisco Bay Area. The 12 winning works of art will also have an original essay written on them by the very talented longtime Bay Area art critic Harry Roche or by John Sheridan.

About The Prize

This Prize for Art came about from my observations of the artworld in the Bay Area over many years. As costs have skyrocketed for rent for artists’ studios ($2-$3.50+/sf in Alameda County which has no subsidized art studio space), for galleries and venues as well as for everything else, it seemed to me that artists in the Bay Area needed a lot of help, which was not being provided to them. Newspapers and magazines have stopped covering the arts on a consistent basis, venues are closing, artists are finding they must work 2 and 3 jobs and many are leaving the Bay Area – or face a difficult time if they want to remain artists. All this is unnecessary and based on greed but it is the terrible environment artists find themselves in.

I wanted to create something to help as many people as possible and it seemed the only way to do that was to create a new space, never before tried in the Bay Area, that was open to ALL artists at low or no cost, with a very large number of cash awards, compared to the usual 3 to 5 awards of most art competitions. And then to hold it annually so that it could, conceivably, become an anticipated event that would showcase as many artists who wished to participate as possible. Without curation and without gate-keeping or censorship. Hate speech or abusive imagery is the only thing that is not allowed, but all other experiments are.

I hope people will view this Prize for Art as a new infrastructure, long-needed in the Bay Area artworld, and the beginning of some kind of remedy for the neglect artists have endured for many years. Something for everyone, it is hoped.

printmaking
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
immigrants-artist
experimental-art
lgbt
people of color
Processed With Darkroom
women artist
sculpture
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This slideshow is of some of the excellent art submitted last year

CONTEST CATEGORIES

Here are the 12 Categories for the 2022 Prize. Artists uploaded their work which appears in the Category they choose. The Artists and People's Choice awards, were voted up by the participating artists and viewers who signed up and voted).
Look here to see their work and see the Winning and Honorably Mentioned works of art!

Please click on the links below to visit each of the 12 different groups of art and artists who are participating in this historic Prize for Art.

La Llorona's Sacred Waters

Painting / Drawing / Murals

See the Art Here
Four Candles

Women Artists

See the Art Here
Stealth Reverie

Sculpture

See the Art Here
Mood Blue

Artists of Color (BIPOC)

See the Art Here
Mother and Daughter

Photography

See the Art Here
Study VI(non-binary)

LGBTQ+ Artists

See the Art Here
Tierra De los Sueños

Printmaking

See the Art Here
Artist Jeffrey Isom: Endangered Wood Stork

Incarcerated Artists

See the Art Here
Let's Celebrate

Experimental Art

See the Art Here
Ob River

Immigrant Artists

See the Art Here
The Gesture

Artist's Choice Award

See the Art Here

People’s Choice Award

See the Art Here
See All Submissions here

DONATING DIRECTLY TO THE SHERIDAN PRIZE FOR ART IS TAX DEDUCTIBLE

You may very easily make a tax deductible donation, through The Sheridan Prize for Art's fiscal sponsor, Independent Arts & Media, located in San Francisco. The button to Donate is at the top of this Home Page. Your donation will be gratefully received and acknowledged. Also please consider sponsoring one or more of the cash awards! If you donate any amount your name or your company's name can be placed on the Wall of Fame to show everyone that you donated for one of the prizes of your choice. Please contact us and let us know you would like to sponsor a prize.

YOU MAY PURCHASE PRINTS OF ART TO SUPPORT THE SHERIDAN PRIZE FOR ART

Please support the Sheridan Prize for Art by purchasing prints partially donated by artists to help raise funds for this Prize. See the button at the top of this home page. The works of art are not a part of the competition but are very high-quality works of art with the proceeds split between the artist and the Prize for art. Your help in purchasing one or more of these prints will be greatly appreciated to defray some of the costs of putting on The Sheridan Prize for Art.