Troy Resident MI Great Artist Finalist

Five artists from Rochester Hills, Troy, Garden City and Clawson are finalists in the 2015 MI Great Artist online competition offering $16,000 in cash and prizes.

They are:

• Meredith Bailey, watercolor, Rochester Hills
• Jennifer Whaley, graphite drawings, of Rochester Hills
• Larry Zdeb, mixed media collage, Troy (also a 2014 finalsit)
• Kenneth Hershenson, acrylic on canvas, Clawson
• Michael Bollerud, pencil on paper, Garden City

The finalists are among 109 artists from Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, Lapeer, Livingston, and St. Clair counties who entered the online competition in September, according to a news release.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and Albert Scaglione, founder and CEO of the Park West Gallery, launched the competition in 2012 to identify and support up-and-coming artists.

They will announce the winner during a reception on Dec. 8 at Scaglione’s gallery in Southfield. The reception begins at 6 p.m., and is free and open to the public. The work of the five finalists will be on display at the gallery from Dec. 1-Jan. 8, 2016.

More than 22,000 online votes were cast during the first two-weeks of the competition, and then the field was whittled down to 25 artists and presented by a panel of judges: Scaglione; Elliott W. Broom, vice president of museum operations at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Dominic Pangborn, founder of Pangborn Design Collection and a former professor at the College of Creative Studies; artist and sculptor Don Tocco; and Kristie Everett Zamora, coordinator of arts and culture for Oakland County’s Department of Economic Development & Community Affairs.

Among other services and considerations, the MI Great Artist winner will receive a $1,500 cash prize and the runners up will each receive a $375 cash prize.

» Photo by Joe Tamel Photography via Flick