34th CPSA International Exhibition Awards 2026

I approached the adjudication for the Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition much like I would any exhibition I organize; thinking holistically about the story we are telling in the gallery. With that in mind, the question of what story is being told through this body of work was foregrounded throughout the process of selecting works. What kept recurring was a notion of observation; a study and methodology of ways of seeing and recording the world around us, from a still life of fruits, portraits of loved ones, and various landscapes encounter in the natural world—the story that unfolded is one of looking and memory. While there are recurring motifs expressed in the works selected for exhibition, each artist’s work embodies different techniques of mark making. From tight compositions and pencil work to looser more abstracted gesturalism, the works in the exhibition aim to transcend canonical limitations of how pencil drawing is perceived, appreciated, interpreted, and experienced. Embracing colored pencil as a medium of fine art is a push towards decolonizing the art historical canon, one that’s hierarchy has historically placed mediums like drawing, photography, textiles, ceramics, and glass in the context of ‘craft’ and not ‘high art,’ the later often reserved for painting and sculpture. 

The understanding of pencil drawing as a medium of high art within a twenty-first century context pushes against those colonial binaries of what is craft, what is high art, and who gets to decide. For this year’s international exhibition, my process was to evaluate the submitted works for not only their technique or specifically their subject matter, but the conceptual framework imbued within, and how those works will enter into dialogue with one another while on view.

Erin Joyce, M.A.
7/26