2nd Annual Paint Wisconsin Juried Exhibition - Traditional Salon

Description

2nd Annual Paint Wisconsin Juried Exhibition - Digital Salon
Theme: Artistic works that capture the essence and aesthetics of life in Wisconsin. Paint Wisconsin is a celebration of the state’s essence through any visual medium—whether rendered with a brush, a lens, or a digital stylus. “Paint” is a metaphor. Paint Wisconsin is an annual juried exhibition of original artwork, showcasing traditional, physical media alongside digital artwork in a traditional yet innovative in-gallery experience, together with online display. The Digital Salon welcomes 2D visual art mediums such as digital painting, digital drawing, digital illustration, digital mixed media, and photography which will be displayed electronically in-gallery and in an online web exhibit. Entries are submitted as digital files only and no physical delivery is required.

Thursday, August 13, 2026 – Friday, September 18, 2026
Whitewater Arts Alliance Cultural Arts Center Gallery,
Downtown Whitewater, WI
and
Roberta's Art Gallery
UW-Whitewater Campus, Whitewater, WI

P R O S P E C T U S
Submissions Open: March 23, 2026Submissions Close: Sunday, June 21, 2026, 11:59pmNotification to Artists: July 13, 2026Exhibition: August 13, 2026 - September 18, 2026.Reception and Awards: Friday, August 14, Time TBAGallery Location:Cultural Arts Center Gallery: 402 West Main Street, Whitewater, WI
Event
2nd Annual Paint Wisconsin Juried Exhibition
Theme
Artistic works that capture the essence and aesthetics of life in Wisconsin. Paint Wisconsin is a celebration of the state’s essence through any visual medium—whether rendered with a brush, a lens, or a digital stylus. “Paint” is a metaphor.
Event Organizer
Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA), PO Box 311, 402 W. Main Street, Whitewater, WI 53190, whitewaterarts.org/paint-wisconsin-2026-call
Overview
Paint Wisconsin is an annual, themed, juried exhibition of original artwork, showcasing traditional, physical media alongside digital artwork in a traditional yet innovative in-gallery experience, together with online display of all accepted work. While the theme of the artwork must relate to Wisconsin, artists do not need to be residents of Wisconsin. The exhibition has two divisions, the Traditional Salon and the Digital Salon. The key conceptual difference between the two salons is that for the Traditional Salon, the images submitted by the artist represent the artwork while in the Digital Salon, the images submitted by the artist are the artwork.
I. The Traditional Salon
The Traditional Salon is dedicated to the enduring impact of physical artwork.• Experience: Accepted works will be displayed in a traditional gallery exhibit and a concurrent online exhibit.• Mediums: We welcome all traditional 2D and 3D mediums including painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, illustration, and mixed media. Also welcome are digital mediums that have been rendered and prepared for physical display.• Requirement: Open to artists in the contiguous United States. Artists are responsible for delivery/shipping of wire-hung, framed work.
II. The Digital Salon
The Digital Salon is an electronic showcase of screen-based fine art.• Experience: Accepted work will be exhibited electronically in-gallery via high-definition display and featured in a global online exhibit.• Mediums: We welcome 2D visual art mediums such as digital painting, digital drawing, digital illustration, digital mixed media, and photography. Also welcome are works in traditional mediums that have been prepared for digital reproduction.• Requirement: Open to artists worldwide. This is a digital-only submission process; no physical delivery of work is required.
Key Dates
Exhibition: Thursday, August 13, 2026 – Friday, September 18, 2026Locations: Cultural Arts Center Gallery, 402 W. Main Street, Whitewater, WI, 53190 and Roberta’s Art Gallery, 190 Hamilton Green Way, UC 158, UW-Whitewater Campus, Whitewater, WI 53190• Call Open: March 23, 2026• Entry Deadline: Sunday, June 21, 2026• Notification of Acceptance: Thursday, July 13, 2026• Artwork Drop-Off: Saturday, August 1, 2026, 12pm – 4pm; Friday, August 7, 2026, 12pm – 4pm• Artwork pickup dates: Saturday, September 19, 2026, 12pm – 4pm; Monday, September 21, 2pm-6pm.
Contacts
• Jeff McDonald, Exhibit Chair - waa.franachen@gmail.com• Kim Adams, WAA Gallery Director - wwartsalliance@gmail.com
Awards
The total monetary award pool for the overall exhibition is $3,200. The awards for each salon are listed in the respective section below. The award selection process is also discussed below.
Exhibition-Wide Awards
   • Best of Show Award ($ 750)   • Caryl Yasko Artistic Vision Award ($ 250)
Traditional Salon Awards
All accepted work will be displayed in a traditional gallery exhibit, as well as online. Accepted work in this salon must be physically delivered to the gallery to be exhibited.   • Artistic Merit Awards      o 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place Salon Awards ($500, $350, $250) + Certificates      o Honorable Mentions: Non-cash certificates for mastery.   • General Public Voting      o Viewer’s Choice: Non-cash certificate awarded to the top vote-getting image from in-gallery public voting.      o Public’s Choice: Non-cash certificate awarded to the top vote-getting image from online public voting.   • Note: Entrants are eligible for only one monetary award per salon. If an artist has multiple images qualifying for cash prizes, the highest-value award will be granted, and other qualifying images will receive non-monetary recognition (Honorable Mention). The non-monetary Public’s Choice award is excluded from this restriction and may be awarded to any artist regardless of other placements.
Digital Salon Awards
All accepted work will be exhibited electronically in-gallery as well as online. Accepted work in this salon does not need to be physically delivered to the gallery.    • Artistic Merit Awards      o 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place Salon Awards ($500, $350, $250) + Certificates      o Honorable Mentions: Non-cash certificates for mastery.   • General Public Voting      o Public’s Choice: Non-cash certificate awarded to the top vote-getting image from online public voting.   • Note: Entrants are eligible for only one monetary award per salon. If an artist has multiple images qualifying for cash prizes, the highest-value award will be granted, and other qualifying images will receive non-monetary recognition (Honorable Mention or Special Recognition). The non-monetary Viewer’s Choice and Public’s Choice awards is excluded from this restriction and may be awarded to any artist regardless of other placements.
Jury Process (All Salons)
The jury panel consists of highly qualified individuals with depths of training and experience in both the artistic qualities of artwork and the technical sides of art creation in the respective mediums. All submissions are reviewed, evaluated, and scored independently by the jury panel using the ArtCall system. After the evaluation and scoring are complete, the jury meets to discuss the work and to arrive at decisions. For the Digital Salon, provisional awards are determined at that time. For the Traditional Salon, a short list is chosen from which the eventual award winners will likely be named. After the artwork has been delivered to the gallery, the jury panel reconvenes to name the final award recipients in the Traditional Salon. Then the awarded works in both salons are considered together for the selection of the Best of Show award.The Best of Show award is the highest honor of the exhibition and is selected from the top-tier work of both Salons. To ensure the broadest recognition of our artist community, the recipient of the Best of Show award will not also hold a placement in their respective Salon. Should a Salon's first-place candidate be elevated to Best of Show, the subsequent rankings for that Salon will "cascade" upward (e.g., the second-place image becomes first-place, third-place becomes second, etc.), and a new third-place image will be designated by the jury.The number of honorable mention awards presented will be decided by the jury panel based on merit and the number of entries submitted. Some awards may not be presented if there are too few entrants in a Salon/Theme area or if the jury panel chooses to not award them based on merit. Decisions of the jury panel are final.
Terms & Conditions
General
• This is a juried acceptance exhibition with two salons, the Traditional Salon and the Digital Salon. All accepted work is exhibited in the gallery. Traditional Salon work is shown physically while Digital Salon work is shown electronically. Each salon has an accompanying online web gallery. • The salons have similar but separate submissions. Artists are encouraged to enter work in both salons. Those who enter both salons are eligible for discounted fees on the second salon they enter.• Artists do not need to be residents of Wisconsin to qualify.• All works accepted for the exhibition will be considered for cash awards. • Physical artwork in the exhibit (the Traditional Salon) will be divided between WAA’s Cultural Arts Center Gallery and Roberta’s Art Gallery.• Submitted work must have been completed in the last three years. • No artwork which has previously received an award (Best of Show, 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place, Honorable Mention, or Honorary Chairperson Award) in a previous Paint Wisconsin exhibition may be submitted.• Individual artworks may not be entered in both the Traditional Salon and Digital Salon in the same year.• Submitted work must be suitable for a general audience that includes individuals of all ages. Work that is overtly sexual, racist, violent, libelous, slanderous, demoralizing, or discriminatory in nature will not be accepted. • Artwork must be entirely the original work of the entrant. No kits, molds, or pre-stamped patterns will be accepted. No work generated by AI (artificial intelligence) may be submitted to the exhibition. Please refer to the AI Policy below.• Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA) and Roberta’s Art Gallery (RAG) will make all curatorial decisions and reserve the right to refrain from displaying, or to display separately, artwork deemed to be inappropriate for their respective websites or public gallery spaces. The respective galleries reserve the right to remove any work of art from public exhibition at any time for any reason.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy
Generative AI is Prohibited Images created entirely or substantially through "text-to-image" generative AI prompts (e.g., Midjourney, DALL-E, Nano Banana) are not permitted. The core of our mission is to showcase the original creative vision and authorship of human artists.AI-Powered Tools: Permitted vs. Prohibited We recognize that modern fine-art workflows involve sophisticated software. Use of AI features is governed by the source of the data:   • Permitted (Non-Generative): Technical corrections including noise reduction (e.g., Topaz/Denoise), sharpening, lens corrections, and upscaling/enlarging of your own original files.   • Permitted (Internal Source): Masking, selections, and the use of AI removal, patching, healing, or cloning tools (e.g., Adobe "Content-Aware Fill") are permitted ONLY if the tool uses the entrant’s original work as its sole source.   • Prohibited (External Source): Any tool that replaces or adds content based on an external generative dataset (e.g., Adobe "Generative Fill") is not allowed.
Entry Fees (All Salons):
The two salons are separate, have separate entry fees, and separate calls in the ArtCall system.Entry fees are non-refundable, regardless of whether work is accepted. WAA Member discount will be applied through a coupon code on the submission site and no adjustments will be made for missed discounts. If for any reason the exhibition cannot take place, all entry fees will be refunded. If one of the salons cannot take place, the entry fees in that salon only will be refunded.The member and student rates are offered in ArtCall when submission credits are purchased. Entries submitted at the Member or Student rate are subject to verification; work may be disqualified from the jurying process if eligibility cannot be confirmed prior to the submission deadline. No refunds will be given for missed discounts. Students should email a photo of their current student ID to waa.franachen@gmail.com immediately after submission.
Entry Fees: Traditional Salon
The entry fee in the Traditional Salon is $50 ($46 for current WAA Members), which includes up to 2 artworks. An entrant may optionally enter 1 additional artwork (up to a total of 3) for an additional fee of $25/each ($23/each for WAA Members). Students up to 25 years of age, subject to verification of student status as described above, are eligible for a 50% discount from the non-member entry fee. Artwork must receive an acceptance to be included in the exhibit. If the physical gallery were to become unavailable due to unforeseen events (e.g., weather, public health, or facility issues), the Traditional Salon may be converted to a Digital-only display. In this case the difference in entry fees between the Traditional Salon and the Digital Salon would be refunded.
Commission on Sales: Traditional Salon
Work may or may not be for sale to be eligible for the gallery exhibition. WAA will make every effort to encourage the sale of work available for purchase. In the event of a sale, the WAA Commission Policy for sales applies for work displayed in either gallery. WAA retains 30% of sale from WAA members and 40% of sale from non-members. WAA collects and submits sales taxes. In accordance with UW Whitewater financial policies, UWW Roberta’s Art Gallery does not handle any form of payment, nor take a commission, and will refer potential buyers to the WAA as soon as possible. WAA makes payments to artists within 30 days following the closing of the exhibit.
Entry Fees: Digital Salon
The entry fee in the Digital Salon is $37.50 ($33.75 for WAA Members), which includes up to 3 artworks. An entrant may optionally enter up to 3 additional artworks (up to a total of 6) for an additional fee of $12.50/each ($11.25/each for WAA members). Students up to 25 years of age, subject to verification of student status as described above, are eligible for a 50% discount from the non-member entry fee.
Entry Information
Entry Information (Traditional Salon)
Maximum overall size of work: 40” in either direction (width or height), including frame.For safety reasons, any glazed work where one side exceeds 25 inches must be glazed with acrylic/Plexiglass. This reduces the risk of personal injury from shattered glass, damage to the print itself, and damage to nearby artworks—during transit or a potential fall.Wire hangers are required. Saw-tooth hangers, clip frames, or "command strip" style attachments are not allowed because they are incompatible with the gallery’s hanging system and generally not mechanically sound. Exceptions to this policy must be approved in advance by the Exhibition Chair. Neither gallery is responsible for pieces that are damaged due to improper hanging hardware or poor craftsmanship.Artwork must be labeled on the back with the artist’s name, the artwork title, the year created, and the selling price (or Not-For-Sale (NFS). Pre-filled tags may be generated from inside the ArtCall system.Artwork must remain on display for the duration of the show. No replacements or substitutions will be permitted. Artwork may not be picked up prior to the closing of the exhibition.
Entry Process (All Salons)
1) You will need digital photographs of your artwork to complete a submission. These photographs must be representative of your artwork and will be uploaded during the submission process; they will be used by the jurors to make their acceptance decisions.Photographs of the artwork must be in JPEG format, with at least 1920 pixels on the longer side and a maximum file size of 5 MB. Submissions with incorrectly formatted images may be rejected.Submissions will be made through ArtCall. Follow the link from the WAA website to ArtCall to begin the submission process. New users will be required to create an ArtCall profile with user login and password. Existing ArtCall users need only login and follow the process for a new submission.The preferred method of payment is through a credit card on the ArtCall site (using Stripe). Checks will be accepted if you enter the Promo Code "PayOffline" which will allow you to make your entry without entering payment. After you make the submission, mail your check to: Whitewater Arts Alliance, 402 W. Main Street, Whitewater, WI 53190. You may also make payment in-person at the WAA Cultural Arts Center Gallery at 402 W. Main Street, Whitewater, WI during gallery open hours.If payment is not received within 7 days of entry, the submissions will not be included in the jurying process. Submissions using the "PayOffline" code will remain in "Pending" status and will not be released to the jurors until the check has been received and cleared by the WAA Treasurer.2) Watch for Acceptance Email by the Date Listed Above. If the acceptance(s) is(are) for the Salon Exhibition, delivery instructions will be included in the acceptance notification.3) Deliver Accepted for Salon Artwork to the gallery during the listed times. Refer to “Delivery of Artwork” below for further information. 4) Pick up unsold artwork during the listed times. Refer to “Pick-Up of Artwork” below for further information.
Delivery of Artwork (Traditional Salon)
Detailed delivery instructions will be provided to artists with work accepted to the Salon exhibition. Those works are to be delivered during the dates/times listed above or by arrangement. The work will be displayed in one of two galleries, WAA’s Cultural Arts Center (CAC) Gallery in downtown Whitewater or at Roberta’s Art Gallery on the UW-Whitewater Campus.Accepted salon artists are welcome to ship work via UPS, FedEx, SpeeDee, or USPS, provided that prior arrangements have been made with the Exhibit Chair and that the work arrives prior to the artwork drop off dates/times listed above. DO NOT ship artwork to either gallery address because staff will not be on-site to receive it – shipping address and instructions will be provided by the Exhibit Chair. Shipments should be labeled “WAA Paint Wisconsin Exhibition” and shipped to the address that will be provided by the Exhibit Chair. Shipments of artwork are at the artist’s expense and must include a prepaid return shipping label. Whitewater Arts Alliance and Roberta’s Art Gallery will not be held responsible for shipping-related damage or loss. A Gallery Agreement may need to be signed upon delivery of artwork or mailed with artwork if being shipped. Any artwork assigned for display at Roberta’s Art Gallery will need to have additional paperwork completed as per UW-Whitewater requirements. Artist will be contacted prior to delivery of artwork if these documents are required.
Pick-Up of Artwork (Traditional Salon)
Unsold works in the salon exhibit are to be picked up during the dates/times listed above or by arrangement.Artists unable to pick up their own work should provide written permission for the person picking up their work. Artwork will not be released without a copy of the delivery receipt with the artist’s signature, or a note of authorization signed by the artist. Email correspondence from the artist to Exhibit Chair may serve as notification.Artwork not picked up on the specified dates or at a pre-arranged alternate date will be considered abandoned and will be disposed of at WAA’s discretion.
Transportation of Artwork (Traditional Salon)
Paint Wisconsin is a major exhibition that spans two galleries. This requires that some accepted artwork to be transported from Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA)'s Cultural Art Center Gallery to Roberta's Art Gallery (RAG) on the UW-Whitewater campus. Since all artwork must be in a single location during the final round of judging when final awards are determined, the transportation must occur after the jurying process is complete.Each artist may either opt-in or opt-out of granting permission for their artwork to be transported. The opt-in/opt-out choice will appear on the submission form. Opting-in will allow WAA and RAG the ability to curate the strongest possible exhibit across the two galleries. Opting-out will restrict curatorial options. The opt-in/opt-out response to this question will be considered when awarding acceptances, but only if it becomes necessary to balance work between the two galleries.By opting-in on the submission form, I understand my artwork MAY be transported from the Cultural Art Center to Roberta's Art Gallery and subsequently returned to the Cultural Arts Center by Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA) and Roberta's Art Gallery (RAG) staff and volunteers. While reasonable care will be taken, WAA and RAG are not responsible for loss, theft, or damage. By opting-out on the submission form, I understand my artwork will NOT be transported between galleries but that this choice may affect the eligibility of my artwork to be accepted into the exhibition.
Consent & Release (All Salons)
Artist maintains full copyright to their work and to photographs of their work. Artist grants the Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA) and Roberta’s Art Gallery (RAG) permission to use the photographs for WAA / RAG promotional and educational purposes, award certificates, to display the photographs on WAA’s / RAG’s website in an online virtual show, to include them in a downloadable PDF exhibition catalog (if produced), and to include them in a printed exhibition catalog (if produced). Artist further consents to reproduction and distribution of images of theirs to potential buyers.I understand that entry fees are non-refundable (except in the case of salon or exhibition cancellation), regardless of whether my work is accepted.I understand that, while all reasonable and possible care will be taken, neither Whitewater Arts Alliance nor Roberta’s Art Gallery assume responsibility for physical damage to or loss of my work. I understand that artwork displayed in WAA's Cultural Art Center and/or Roberta's Art Gallery is exhibited at my own risk. I further understand that the WAA recommends that each artist arrange for insurance coverage on artist’s own work at artist’s own expense. I understand that work left 30 days past the pickup deadline becomes property of WAA.By submitting an entry to the Whitewater Arts Alliance (WAA), I certify that the completed work is entirely my own and that no part of my entry infringes on the copyright of another person, that I have obtained all necessary model releases for any recognizable persons depicted in my work, and agree to defend and hold WAA harmless against any legal claims of copyright infringement brought by third parties. Further, I have read and agree to all the terms, conditions, and rules of the exhibition which are listed above.
Whitewater Arts Alliance, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, charitable organization based in Whitewater, Wisconsin.
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