2026 Explore This! 22 Awards

I am so pleased to have been invited to jury CPSA’s 2026 Explore This! exhibition. The experience of reviewing the many submissions was one that was both educational and enjoyable, and broadly expanded any ideas that I had about what colored pencil can do or should be. As someone whose scholarly focus lies in works on paper from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, my area of expertise involves the period in art history when colored pencil first came to be used and continued to be expanded by artists in Europe and the United States for fine art. It would be difficult for many of those figures to imagine the creative possibilities offered by colored pencil to artists today—especially when in conversation with materials such as pastel, watercolor, and beyond.

It was a daunting task to even begin to narrow down the group of submissions and I would have loved to have been able to accept a far larger group. I found that works drew my attention for a wide range of reasons; extreme realism and detail, unusual combinations of materials, and interesting subjects creatively rendered were just a few criteria that stood out most. From this broader group, I tried to give thought to how effectively each artist effectively combined subject and medium to create a cohesive work. Perhaps most of all, I considered how each work participated in a broader conversation about what colored pencil is capable of and the possibilities that each work offered future artists taking up the medium to draw inspiration, refine their craft, and expand the definition of colored pencil drawing.

It was an honor to spend time getting to know these artworks (and, indirectly, their artists!) closely. I am grateful to Anda Chance and the rest of the CPSA team for including me in the process. I would like to congratulate and extend my very best wishes to each of the artists who submitted. It was immediately obvious to me how invested each and every person was in their submissions, and how much time, effort, and passion each individual artwork represented. I look forward to seeing what future Explore This! exhibitions produce!