The annual January Fountain Hills Juried Art Show is open to all area resident artists in the greater Fountain Hills area including the Verdes, Goldfield Ranch and Fort McDowell and FHAL members.

Winners will be announced at a reception Thursday, Jan. 9, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

The event is jointly sponsored by the Fountain Hills Cultural and Civic Association and the Fountain Hills Art League.

Ribbons and monetary awards will be presented at the reception at the Community Center. The show will hang from Jan. 6 through 31.

Judges this year are Jason Horejs, co-owner of Xanadu Gallery and fine artist, Jane Bradley.

Horejs’ life has been filled with art. Though not interested in pursuing a life as an artist, he fell in love with the business side of art at an early age. When he was 12, the future gallery owner was employed by his father building custom canvas stretchers.

In 1991, at the age of 17, Horejs began working at a large western gallery in Scottsdale where he learned the gallery business from the ground up.

In 2001, Horejs and his wife, Carrie, opened Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, and expanded to a second location in Pinetop in 2019. The couple has built relationships with art collectors from all over the world and work to help cultivate new art buyers.

Bradley received her MFA at the University of Utah in painting and computer animation in 1991. In the 12 years following graduation she worked as a computer animator and eventually worked as art director for major console and computer game companies. She spent a great deal of time not only with 3D computer building and animation, she also became an expert in texture mapping.

Since 2004 she has done numerous shows and won many awards for her work. She has sold work at the C.M. Russell Auction, the Scottsdale Salon of Art and Prescott’s Phippen Museum Western Art Show and Sale for which she won the 2006 Best of Show for her painting “Red Shoes.”

Bradley has chosen in the last few years to do fewer shows and instead concentrate on commissions and portraiture. In 2017 she was awarded Best of Show for her painting “Professor of Hip-Hop” in the Portrait Artist of Arizona competition.

Artists participating in the juried show competed in categories including photography and digital imaging; painting; drawings; as well as sculpture, ceramics, fiber art, beaded art, jewelry and wood.

Awards are $100 for best of show; category awards, $75 for first, $25 for second. Honorable mention awards also will be presented.

Art will be judged on the basis of originality, strength and quality of design and composition, mastery of the chosen medium, clarity of message and quality of presentation.

Bonnie Schweihs of Fountain Hills Art League is chair of the Art League art show. Co-chair is Mary Ahrens.