The Body of Empathy— Figurative Environmental Portrait Paintings— Ellis Hall Exhibition. Deadline for submission: July 1st 2018, midnight UTC-5

Call for painters for one year group exhibition in Ellis Hall at Hendrix College.

We are looking for artists that make environmental portrait paintings focusing on the representation of emotions, including persons, built places, or environments. Paintings can involve historical, mythological, or imaginary people. Paintings can be oil, acrylic, or watercolor, although works with dimensions larger than 36”x36” and smaller than 72”x72” are preferred.

The theme of the exhibition is The Body of Empathy, which will raise questions about whether we can empathize with characters or personas in paintings. Can looking at the human body in a painting be a type of ethical witnessing of the life of a person? We are especially interested in works that involve expression of emotion, paintings that— although figurative and representational— cultivate empathy for sentiments in human life: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, pride, shame, guilt, resentment.

The exhibition will take place from September 1st, 2018 through August 31st, 2019. We will select five different artists for a total of five different paintings. Ellis Hall is a building on the Hendrix College campus that houses the philosophy and religious studies programs as well as the Marshall T. Steel Center for the Study of Religion and Philosophy. Hendrix College’s mission statement states that the college “cultivates empathy, creativity, self-understanding, rigorous inquiry, informed deliberation, and active learning across the liberal arts, toward the development of the whole person.”

The paintings will be the subject of writing in courses on Beauty, Neuroaesthetics, environmental aesthetics, and ontology of art by students. A culminating essay for the show will be written by Dr. James M. Dow, Associate Professor of Philosophy, whose research and writing focuses on aesthetics of art and environmental aesthetics. Return Shipping and insurance will be paid for by the Steel Center for Philosophy and Religion.

• Please upload 3-5 hi resolution images of paintings to CuratorSpace, titled with “name-title-imagelistnumber”
• For each image include Title, Medium, Size, and Year in an image list
• Short 100 word artist bio
• Link to artist website

Deadline for submission: July 1st 2018, midnight UTC-5