Call to Artists

28th National Juried Fine Arts Exhibition

MKAC Art Galleries presents the 28th Emerald Coast National Juried Fine Arts Exhibition, August 29, 2020 – October 16, 2019. The exhibition will be juried by Ndubuisi “Endy” Ezeluomba, PhD., Francoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA).

Originally from Benin City, Nigeria, Ezeluomba began his work at NOMA after serving the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Research Specialist in African Art. In this role, Ezeluomba collaborated with the institution’s conservation department to probe beneath the surface of the objects in the museum’s collection. Before his time in Virginia, Ezeluomba served as a consultant on the Elusive Spirits: African Masquerades exhibition at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, and worked on the Harn Museum curatorial team that produced Kongo Across the Waters, examining 500 years of cultural exchange between the Kongo, Europe, and the United States, showing the rise of Kongo as a major Atlantic presence and the transmission of Kongo culture through the transatlantic slave trade into American art.

Ezeluomba received a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Florida, Gainesville, specializing in historic African shrines. His dissertation, entitled Olokun Shrines: Their Functions in the Culture of the Benin Speaking People of Southern Nigeria, earned him the University of Florida Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2017. Ezeluomba received his B.A. in Fine and Applied Arts from the University of Benin, and graduated from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, where his master’s thesis focused on the contemporary Nigerian artist Obi Ekwenchi. Ezeluomba has contributed to multiple publications and journals, including Routledge Encyclopedia of African Studies, Agents of Space: Eighteenth-Century Art, Architecture and Visual Culture; Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism; Black Art Quarterly; and has presented at numerous international conferences.

Please note that the digital entry form must be submitted, along with art work, as an attachment to artgalleries@nwfsc.edu.

Arnie Hart Juried Student Exhibition

The Arnie Hart Juried Student Exhibition is held annually in spring semester. Each year the finest student works are juried by an art professional for the Arnie Hart show, and this year’s field of applicants promises a competitive selection process and an exciting exhibition in the McIlroy Gallery. This past year more than 140 entrants showcased work in drawing, painting, pottery and 3-D genres. Some of these students earned awards and were selected for inclusion in the art section of the college literary journal The Blackwater Review.

Call for Proposals: Exhibiting at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center

The Mattie Kelly Arts Center Galleries accept proposals for solo and/or group exhibitions in the McIlroy or Holzhauer Gallery on a rolling basis. Please submit complete exhibition proposals in PDF format to artgalleries@nwfsc.edu.  In lieu of a formal proposal, each interested artist should submit the following materials to the same email address:

Submit a Proposal