More than 500 individual works of art by adult artists from across the United States were submitted for the Valdosta State University Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery’s Valdosta National 2018. The all-media juried competition and exhibition opens at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 16, with a reception and awards ceremony.  
 
For the 30th annual showcase of contemporary visual art, Linda Hall, Valdosta National 2018 judge, selected 66 works by 54 artists from 26 states to be featured and to compete for $1,500 in awards. The selection process was highly competitive.
 
Julie Bowland, Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery director and Department of Art and Design professor, described Valdosta National 2018 as “eccentric and raw … with a lot of unusual or unexpected mixed media, including leather, glass, buttons, resin, found objects, sewn rubber with iron, yarn, raku with mummified fish, hand-painted silk filled with sand, cast plastic with polaroid, sterling silver and shell, beverage cans, and ceramic installation, as well as more traditional bronze, oil, graphite, photography, lithography, relief print, acrylic, clay, and intaglio.”
 
Valdosta National 2018 will run through Friday, Feb. 2, and is open to the public.
 
Hall is a Tallahassee, Florida-based multimedia artist inspired by the natural world and the human condition. Her watercolor paintings and three-dimensional soft sculpture works have been exhibited in group and solo shows in regional, national, and international publications and venues. Her work has been featured on various music CD covers, in an issue of “New American Paintings,” and in online publications of “Oxford American” and “Beautiful/Decay.” She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is an occasional adjunct professor at Florida State University.