As we approach the first weekend in Spring, there is plenty of stuff on the New American Paintings' Blog to catch up on. After the jump you can find out what happened this week, in case you missed it...

First of all...We announced our West Region competition and juror, Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. if you reside in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming, now is your chance to apply to New American Paintings.

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Early in the week, Seattle Contributor, Erin Langner, shared an interview she did with artist Ben Waterman. She wrote, "...Waterman’s paintings invite extended meditation on seemingly banal objects: a red mosquito net, a brown piano, a vacant fireplace.  These highly specific objects float in contrast to their surroundings--disorientingly unidentifiable places painted with inarticulate brushstrokes. Given the Seattle artist’s pronounced affinity for travel to new places, these surreal landscapes prompt questions on the complicated role of inspiration within constructed visual images. I caught up with Ben to discuss Midnight Lullaby, his new show at Greg Kucera Gallery, and the real places buried within the layers of his work." Read the full post here.

Ben Waterman | Lovers, 2011, Oil and acrylic paint on paper, 20 x 26 inches.
Image courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery.

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On Wednesday we re-posted a great piece found on artinfo.com called "A Guide to 20 Top Artist Residencies and Retreats Across the United States," by Alanna Martinez, Chloe Wyma. Read the entire post on artinfo.com

Sophie Barbasch, 2011 artist-in-residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts

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Finally, we ended on Thursday with another terrific contribution by Matthew Smith in D.C.. According to Smith, "Steven Riddle’s paper collages are additive. They’re layers and layers of material that slope past their underlying surfaces in gentle relief. They’re also subtractive, just as much the result of recursively eliminating elements. And they’re practically alive. A single composition is often an amalgamation of pieces produced more recently mixed with others from two years prior. They’re like living, breathing documents of the artist’s extended studio history, all of it cumulatively recorded in the bins of scrap paper in his studio -- blank paper that’s been air brushed, silkscreened, brushed over with gouache, monotyped , and that’s just for starters. Colorful and seemingly delicate, Riddle’s collages might seem like a reaction to the urban gray and grit of Baltimore, where he lives. Perhaps they’re escapist renditions, or more likely, ornate celebrations of a city’s latent energy." Matthew checked out Riddle's studio at Towson University, where he is an MFA candidate, and we posted his interview here.

Steven Riddle | The Studio Light, 2011, gouache, acrylic, oil-based mono-type, silkscreen, collage on paper, 46 × 46"

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HAVE A GREAT SPRING WEEKEND FROM ALL OF US AT NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS!!!