Hamilton resident John Szabo with his painting Unfit Survival, which the Utrecht Art Supplies Best in Show award. direction.
Princeton Resident Mic Boekelmann (center) with her children Max and Luisa, who are the subjects of her portraits on display in Mercer County Community College’s gallery. She won a Juror’s Choice Award.
Lawrenceville resident Margaret Miller with her oil painting Autumn Tide, which won a Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission Purchase Award.
On March 13, 16 local artists were honored at the opening reception for Mercer County Artists, an exhibition hosted at Mercer County Community College.
Awards included best in show, Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission Purchase Award and West Windsor Arts Council award along with honorable mentions.
Hamilton resident John Szabo, an alumnus of MCCC’s Advertising Design program, earned the Utrecht Art Supplies Best in Show award for his painting Unfit Survival. He has two paintings in the exhibit.
Szabo said he is inspiration by science fiction and tries to captures themes that suggest the world is going in the wrong direction.
Mic Boekelmann, of Princeton, won the Juror’s Choice Award for a painting of her 14-year-old son Max. A portrait of her 8-year-old daughter Luisa was also accepted into the show.
Fellow Princeton resident Judy Tobie also won a Juror’s Choice Award for work Shadowlines.
Margaret Miller, of Lawrenceville won a Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission Purchase Award for her oil painting Autumn Tide. Miller said she has taken art courses at MCCC and had focused on crafting before recently turning her creative energy to painting.
Other Purchase Award winners were West Windsor resident Louis Cicchini for Fair Weather Friends, Princeton resident Trudy Glucksberg for Flood Zone and Hopewell resident George Olexa for Redbuds.
Renee Kumar, of West Windsor, won a Purchase award for Spring Fever and the West Windsor Arts Council Award 2-D for Spring Cherry Tree.
The West Windsor Arts Council Award 3-D went to Janet Felton for About to Spring. She also received an Honorable Mention for Let’s not split hares.
Trenton resident Arlene Gale Milgram’s Dark Thoughts, a mixed media on wood, received an Honorable Mention. Milgram said this work was the last in a series of six pieces that were inspired by recently breaking a bone.
Other Honorable Mentions included Princeton resident Gill Stewart for Calm and Hamilton residents Larry Chestnut for Take Out, Constantin Nazarie for Eroded Beliefs and Guadalupe Reyes for Viva La Vida Con Frida.
The Mercer County Artists exhibition features 187 works by 88 artists including oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings, sculptures and mixed media collages.
The exhibition is dedicated to Al Aronson, winner of last year’s Purchase Award, Tito Cascieri and Elizabeth Ruggles, who died in the past year.
The exhibition is set to be on display through April 4 in The Gallery at Mercer located on the second floor of the Communications on the West Windsor campus, 1200 Old Trenton Road.
More information is online at mccc.edu/community_gallery.
