I received notification about a week ago that I am one of 109 finalists for the Hunting Art Prize. Darwin and the Beagle, a 36″ x 48″ acrylic painting on paper, was the work that placed me among the finalists.

The Hunting Art Prize is a prestigious annual competition open to established, emerging, and amateur artists throughout Texas. Hunting PLC, an international oil services company, sponsors the Hunting Art Prize, the “most generous annual award in North America for painting and drawing.” The 2012 winner of the $50,000 Hunting Art Prize will be announced at a gala held on April 28 in Houston.

Submissions to this year’s competition were assessed by a three-juror panel: Eric Crosby, Curatorial Assistant of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia; and Claire Schneider, Independent Curator based in Scottsdale, Arizona and former Senior Curator of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.