AQUACHROME 2023: An International Competitive Biennial Exhibit of Contemporary Watercolor*

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary watercolor. Open to all traditional and non-traditional approaches to the medium. *Watercolor, gouache, ink wash, tempera, and other similar painting media are all eligible. Submissions can range from the most traditional to the most conceptual or experimental.

Quite possibly the oldest form of painting, watercolor persists today, defying narrow categorization and broad stereotype. Practiced for centuries in concept development preliminary to finished paintings made in oil or other scale-worthy durable media, watercolor also found favor with botanists, illustrators, and portraitists, and was applied to varied and countless surfaces.

The nature of the media itself represents a delicate and dictatorial transparency, fluidity, and a potential for expressive spontaneity. This not only makes it an ideal vehicle for visual art, but also one of training, intensity, philosophy, and play for any who practice it. Where an artist can easily dominate other painting media, forcing a will through viscous layers into a work of art like taming a wild horse, with watercolor there is dialog, compromise, and undeniable forthrightness. In this way the artist practicing watercolor works with a tiger in the room.

$40 for up to FOUR entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.

ANNUAL CASH AWARD: The annual Manifest Grand Jury Prize will result in the awarding of one significant cash prize ($5000) to a single work selected as the 'best of the entire season'.