FIRST Place Award Winner:
Terry Payne / USA

Renaissance man well describes Payne. Music, painting, humanities, computers, mathematics, and teaching comprise the fabric of his education and career.

Born and reared in Los Angeles, he fled town after high school for the University of Oregon (humanities), returned to help run the family business, returned to Oregon (computers, math, teaching certificate), then to L A to teach at Immaculate Heart, whereupon art pulled him away from the LA-Oregon pendulum. Santa Barbara beckoned (graphic design studies), then the School of Visual Arts in NYC (painting), and finally Art Center College of Design (illustration degree), which meant L A once again, and there he remains.

Early influences by vintage movie posters, family heirlooms, and Old West collectibles inform his work. However, Payne fuses period imagery to digital techniques using a “secret recipe” to achieve his unique look suitable for advertising, packaging, or editorial venues.

GALLERY COMMENT::

The  First Place was awarded not for any one image but for his concept of  “a portrait a day” for 30 days and the particularly high level of illustrative and graphic creativity that is displayed.

The ARTROM Gallery Staff pursued this line of thinking and created a looped sequence to present the 30 winning images as a whole.