Judges

Judges and the Judging Process

The jurist panel consists of three (3) independent judges who are selected annually from across the country for their in-depth knowledge and experience in multiple art media. In October, they will review the digital images of all applicants to select the Festival artists and the Waitlist artists. In March the same jurist panel will review the work of the exhibitors to determine those artists they consider eligible for awards. Judging of the awards is based upon the overall quality of the artwork exhibited. After a booth is selected by a judge, the artist is responsible for selecting one piece for Saturday's awards processing that best represents his or her entire body of work. The Best of Show, Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation Award, and the Morse Museum Award are each presented for an individual piece of art. Awards are presented solely at the discretion of the judges.

The 64th Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival 2023 Judges

Daric Gill
Columbus, Ohio

Daric Gill is an Ohio-based interdisciplinary artist specializing in painting and sculpture. He has an MFA from the University of Cincinnati and a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design. Gill is a recipient of the 2019 Artist Exchange in Dresden, Germany, the 2019 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the 2018 Visual Arts Fellowship from the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and has been awarded multiple other grants. He is a member of the International Association of Art and has an extensive international exhibition record including shows in South Korea, Germany, Cuba, New York City, and Los Angeles. Gill is a full-time studio artist and former adjunct instructor at the Columbus College of Art & Design. He also runs a free online professional development resource and gives workshops for aspiring artists.

Kathy Liao
Kansas City, MO

As a Taiwanese American artist, Liao looks for patterns and repetitions in behaviors of the immigrant family. Liao received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Washington, Seattle.

She is a recipient of various awards including the 2020 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award, Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, and the public art commission for the new Kansas City International Airport. Her recent exhibitions include the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Formerly, Liao was Director of the Painting and Printmaking at Missouri Western State University, and has taught at various institutions across the country. She was nominated “Most Influential Professor” in 2019.

Kelly O’Briant
Irving, Texas

Kelly O’Briant was a full-time potter in North Carolina for almost a decade before earning an MFA (2014) from Arizona State University. She has been a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT, the International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary and the pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen, China. The National Council for Education on the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) named her an Emerging Artist in 2015. O'Briant's work has been included in exhibitions internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX, the Myers Gallery, Grand Forks, ND, the Mesaros Gallery, Morgantown, WV, the Windows Gallery, Jingdezhen, China and Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC. O’Briant completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV, in ceramic production methods and ceramic digital technology, before joining the faculty of the University of Dallas as an Assistant Professor of Art in Ceramics and Graduate Director of Art for Braniff Graduate School.

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