Au Naturel Exhibit: People’s Choice Award

Blash by Michael Reedy was selected to receive the People’s Choice Award during this year’s Au Naturel exhibit at CCC’s Art Center Gallery. Submitted photo.

Voters selected Michael Reedy’s mixed media piece entitled Blash for the People’s Choice Award in this year’s Au Naturel: The Nude in the 21st Century exhibit.

Throughout the duration of the exhibit, February 21st through March 28th, all visitors were invited to cast their vote for the People’s Choice Award. After the close of the exhibit, all votes were tallied and Michael Reedy’s Blash received the greatest number of votes.

Mr. Reedy explains the focus of his work on the human form stems from his “ongoing curiosity regarding the physical limits of the body, and its ultimate failing (both outwardly and inwardly).”  These interests have been “paired with prior interests long rooted in depictions of the body that fall outside the canon of art history (medical imaging and cartooning).”

This is the fourth year that Mr. Reedy has participated in the Au Naturel exhibit, and he has received recognition for his work in this competition multiple times.  His work was selected for a Purchase Award by the CCC art faculty in the first Au Naturel exhibit in 2007, and chosen for first place in the 2009 exhibit by juror Rick Bartow.  In addition to winning this year’s People’s Choice Award for Blash, Mr. Reedy also received the first place award from juror Clint Brown for his piece Expulsion.  This is the first time in the history of the Au Naturel competition that an artist has been awarded first place for the second time.

Michael Reedy was born in Galesburg, Illinois and received a BFA in Drawing from North Central College, and an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University. He began teaching at Eastern Michigan University in 2005, where he continues to serve as Associate Professor of Art.  Additional information about the artist and his work can be found at http://mikereedy.com/

Art enthusiasts can view the rest of works in this show, as well as additional award winners, at http://www.aunaturelart.com

Artists who are interested in submitting work for the 2014 Au Naturel competition may contact Kristin Shauck at 503-338-2472 or [email protected]

First Place Award

Michael Reedy
(Ann Arbor, MI)
Artist Website

Expulsion (e.), Mixed media on paper, 46″ x 46″

The human figure has been central to my studies and explorations as a practicing artist for the last twenty years. My ongoing curiosity regarding the physical limits of the body, and its ultimate failing (both outwardly and inwardly), has been paired with prior interests long rooted in depictions of the body that fall outside the canon of art history (medical imaging and cartooning). Here, the ongoing references to anatomical illustration, and its benign approach to depicting pain and death, and cartooning serve to both underscore the comedic tragedy of physical existence, as well as the frailties that increasingly define our sense of self as we age. In each instance, the unsettling presence of the open body (removed from its traditional context) presents complex questions of gender, pleasure, pain, interpretation, and reception, and results in works infused with a sense of scientific aura, moral lesson, and morbid entertainment. Consequently, I hope the viewer is seduced into disregarding the boundaries between interior and exterior, between looking and feeling, and between the real and the pictured body.