The National Wet Paint Exhibition is an outlook and an overview of emerging contemporary artists across the United States currently working in the medium of painting. Wet Paint refers to the idea that this is a fresh group of artists. They are MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) candidates and recent MFA recipients working primarily in the medium of painting.

Under the watchful eye of a technology driven society, online social networking and cyber interaction communities, emerging artists have been evolving and redefining one of the oldest mediums of art, painting. Wet Paint poses the following questions: How is the next generation of artists redefining one of the oldest art mediums? How are new technologies impacting their painting materials, methods, techniques, processes and ideas? How are graduate programs in America reshaping painting? What does painting mean to a new generation? Wet Paint highlights and gives a forum to a new generation of artists working from traditional to experimental painting media.

The National Wet Paint Exhibition consists of 45 paintings by artists selected from a national call which resulted in 288 submissions. The exhibition takes place in the 6000 sq/ft main gallery of the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood. The Zhou B Art Center is a private, non-government funded art center designed to facilitate the exchange of contemporary art between Chicago and the international art community. The 87,000 square feet art center offers innumerable possibilities for exploring the arts in a charismatic location and collectively form an extravagant art center fusing culture and creativity. — Sergio Gomez, MFA