Meet the 2022 Jurors

Art Center staff recruited four experts from the field of art: curatorial, galleries, museums, or academia to evaluate applications. Efforts have been made to include jurors from a broad spectrum of demographic and philosophical differences, including age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities, educational background, and work experience.

Zoë Charlton

Zoë Charlton, MFA, creates figure drawings, collages, installations, and animations that depict her subject’s relationship to culturally loaded objects and landscapes. Charlton received her MFA degree from the University of Texas at Austin and participated in residencies, including Artpace Residency (TX), McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), Ucross Foundation (WY), the Skowhegan School of Painting (ME), and the Patterson Residency at the Creative Alliance (MD). Her work has been included in national and international exhibitions including The Delaware Contemporary (DE), the Harvey B. Gantt Center (NC), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (AR), Studio Museum of Harlem (NY), Contemporary Art Museum (TX), the Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland), and Haas & Fischer Gallery (Switzerland).  She is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner grant (2012) and a Rubys grant (2014). Museum collections include The Phillips Collection (DC), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (AR), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), and Studio Museum in Harlem (NY). Charlton co-founded ‘sindikit, a collaborative art initiative, with her colleague Tim Doud to engage their research interests in gender, sexuality, and race. Charlton is a Professor of Art at American University in Washington, D.C., holds a seat on the Maryland State Arts Council, and is a board member at the Washington Project for the Arts (DC).

Jaynelle Hazard

Jaynelle Hazard, MA, is the Executive Director and Curator of Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA), where she builds a critically engaged practice by introducing methods to advance scholarship; extend reach in interdisciplinary experimentation of contemporary art and ideas; and engage audiences of all backgrounds and identities. In previous roles, she has served as Director of Exhibitions at Workhouse Arts Center, supported various art programs such as the corporate contemporary art collection at UBS, and worked with Blank Projects, a contemporary art gallery in Cape Town, South Africa. Jaynelle Hazard holds a Bachelor of Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master of Arts from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York. She currently serves as the Co-Chair for the Washington, DC Chapter of Sotheby’s Institute of Art Alumni and on the executive committee for the DC Chapter of ArtTable, Inc., a professional organization dedicated to advancing the leadership of women in the visual arts.

Jack Rasmussen

Jack Rasmussen, Ph.D., earned his BA in Art from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, before completing an MFA in Painting, MA in Arts Management, and MA and PhD in Anthropology at American University. He worked in the Education Department of the National Gallery of Art and became Assistant Director of the Washington Project for the Arts when it opened in 1975. He left this position to open the Jack Rasmussen Gallery, helped launch Rockville Arts Place (VisArts), served ten years as Executive Director of Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD, and three years as Executive Director of di Rosa in Napa, CA. Rasmussen has been Director and Curator of the American University Museum since it opened in 2005. He currently serves on the board of the Maryland State Arts Council.

John Ruppert

John Ruppert, MFA, is a Professor of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park where he served as Chair of the Department of Art for 13 years and has been on the faculty since 1987. He received his MFA from the School for American Craftsman at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, in 1977. Ruppert has been working in cast metals over the past 40 year; manufactured materials such as chain-link fabric; mixed media; and more recently, video, digital 3D-printing and digital composite photography. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums, sculpture parks and galleries both in the United States and abroad. These include Grounds for Sculpture (NJ), Omi International Sculpture Park (NY), Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (NC), Kreeger Museum (DC), Katonah Art Museum (NY), 2010 Miami Sculpture Biennale (FL), Katzen Art Center (DC), and the Baltimore Museum of Art. His work was included in Material Terrain, a major traveling exhibition that was commissioned by and debuted at Laumeier international Sculpture Park, St Louis (MO), and traveled to eight museums across the country. He had a solo exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, which traveled to Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. His work was included in Urban Garden, an outdoor sculpture installation at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston (MA), organized DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Internationally, Ruppert was selected to represent the United States at the inaugural exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Tallinn, Estonia. He has also been included in exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Wenzhou, China; Latvia; Finland; and Poland. He has been invited to participate in numerous artist residency programs, including Iceland; Aeolian Islands off of Sicily; Marseille, France; Salem Art Works and Cary Hill Sculpture Park, NY; and as a Distinguished Visitor at Washington College as part of their Sandbox initiative. Most recently he participated in the Arctic Circle Residency this past June. Ruppert has been commissioned to create major sculptural installations for the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the 2012 West Lake International Exhibition in Hangzhou, China, and more recently at Harbor Point in Baltimore. Reviews of his work have been published in Art in America, New Art Examiner, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and The New York Times with feature articles in Art China and most recently Sculpture magazine.  In addition, Ruppert has received numerous awards including five Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist grants, the Mary Sawyers Baker Award, which included an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and most recently, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.

RETURN 2022 SELECTED ARTISTS CATALOG