ArtX...the X is for eXcellence, eXtraordinary and X marks the spot for Claremont’s student artists!

The art being exhibited on this website is the culmination of the 2011 ArtX student-juried art competition presented by the Claremont Museum of Art. We invite you to look at and enjoy an exhibition that showcases the creative talents of high school-age student artists currently working in the City of Claremont.

The competition focused on two-dimensional visual arts: mixed media and photography. The only other stipulations were that the students must live in Claremont, the artwork must be original to the student entering it and that the artwork be created to express this year’s ArtX theme, What Matters? Each student was asked to write an artist statement to help explain the meaning of the artwork she or he created.

Seventy-seven students entered artworks in this year’s competition. Twenty-three were selected to receive cash awards and to exhibit their work at the Ginger Elliott Gallery in Memorial Park.

But every one of the seventy-seven students who entered the ArtX competition is a winner. Only space prevented us from being able to hang all of the artwork we received. Click here to see the full online version of the ArtX exhibition spotlighting all seventy-seven pieces of art. Just click on the name of the student whose art you’d like to view and the image will pop up along with the student’s artist statement about the piece.

ArtX is all about the student artists, their ideas and their points-of-view, what they have to say and how it’s expressed through art is the focus of the exhibition. Skill and use of materials were key in this competition, but the judges paid particular attention to what was expressed in the artwork. Judging was based on creativity and originality, skill and technique, artistic vision and style. Paramount, of course, was execution of the What Matters? theme.

Many thanks to our judges, noted Claremont water color painter, Jim Fuller; practicing artist and Scripps College faculty member, Nancy Macko; artist and arts educator at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga, Jeanne Steffan; Pomona Arts Colony gallery owner and painter, Juan Thorp; and museum program and outreach manager for Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont, Jessica Wimbley.

ArtX is sponsored solely by the Claremont Museum of Art thanks to a generous donation from a CMA member. The Ginger Elliott Gallery exhibition space for ArtX has been generously underwritten by Gould Asset Management LLC of Claremont.