AMSET hosts 37th Annual Protégé High School Art Competition and Exhibition

Artwork by local high school seniors, selected for the Annual Protégé Competition and Exhibition, will be on view March 3 - 26, 2023 at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET). Artworks will then travel to area schools for exhibition and outreach in the community.

Protégé Competition and Exhibition provides local 12th-graders exposure to the art world. AMSET believes it is important for young artists to have an opportunity to experience art competitions and learn how to properly exhibit their artwork. Senior students in Chambers, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, Orange, and Tyler counties are eligible to participate.

This year’s juror is Keliy Anderson-Staley, a Houston-based artist and an Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Media at the University of Houston. Anderson-Staley has been awarded numerous national grants, fellowships and awards including a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship. Anderson-Staley’s recent solo exhibition, Documents & Dwellings, was on view at AMSET in the fall of 2022 which included a 10 by 10-foot house structure covered in over 560 tintype portraits, a selection of antique baking pans with emulsified images on their surfaces, and books and quilts made with prints and cyanotypes. Anderson-Staley’s current artworks convey a unique and personal investigation into the definitions of home, family, and community.

Student artists selected for the Protégé exhibition attend an archival framing workshop presented by the AMSET curatorial department. Awards for winners include scholarships to Lamar University's Art Department through a donation by the Friends of the Arts and gift certificates for art supplies. Additionally, the first-place winner will receive a one-time $2500 art tuition scholarship provided by the Stewart M. Chisum and Bessie Fisher Chisum Scholarship Fund, to any two year, or higher, art college or program in which the student is a declared art major.

In addition to scholarship awards, varying denominations of gift certificate monies are awarded for first, second, third, and honorable mentions. The teacher of the first-place winner will also receive a certificate for classroom art supplies. These art supply awards are kindly provided by Blick Art Materials.

AMSET will host the Protégé Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 from 6 - 7:30 p.m. Cookies and punch will be provided. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (409) 832-3432 or visit www.amset.org.