Spectrum 26 Awards Recipients!

Donato Giancola accepting his Grand Master award.

Spectrum 26 Awards Recipients! Congratulations to all!

For 26 years Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art has been celebrating imaginative works by creators from around the world.

The Spectrum Awards Ceremony was held in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday night, March 30, 2019. Entry was free for all Planet Comicon and Spectrum Fantastic Art Live event ticket holders and exhibitors. Nearly 500 people were in attendance.

The celebration included the presentation of Gold and Silver Awards for exemplary art from the previous year in eight categories: Advertising, Book, Comics, Concept Art, Dimensional, Editorial, Institutional, and Unpublished. The ceremony was held in the historic Folly Theater. Presenters included such luminaries of the art community as Patricia Briggs (Book category), Bill Carman (Institutional category), John English (Advertising category), Dan dos Santos (Grand Master award), Gary Gianni (Comic category), Cory Godbey (Unpublished category), Iain McCaig (Concept Art category), Colin and Kristine Poole (Rising Star and Dimensional category), and Zoë Robinson (Editorial category). Spectrum founders Cathy and Arnie Fenner introduced a memorial video devoted to the creatives who had passed away in the previous year. Bob Self and Lauren Panepinto served as the hosts during the ceremony. John Fleskes and Katherine Chu offered a thank you speech to close the ceremony, while “Stand Up Magician” Derek Hughes performed during the evening.
The 5 finalists and award-recipients in each category were selected by the jury consisting of Kei Acedera, Wesley Burt, Bobby Chiu, Edward Kinsella III, Colin and Kristine Poole from over 4000 artworks submitted to the twenty-sixth annual competition. Also presented at the ceremony were the Rising Star Award, created and presented by sculptors Kristine and Colin Poole and intended to encourage a young artist, and the Spectrum Grand Master Award which honors the career accomplishments of a living artist. This year’s Grand Master recipient was Donato Giancola, who was present to accept his award.

The Spectrum 26 awards were designed and made by J. Anthony Kosar and his team at Kosart Effects Studio.

The award-winning art will appear with over 500 other pieces selected by the judges in the Spectrum 26 book, which will be published by Flesk Publications in November 2019.

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated and to the recipients!

Spectrum 26 Awards Recipients

2017 GRAND MASTER HONOREE
Donato Giancola

RISING STAR AWARD
Ki Gawki

ADVERTISING CATEGORY

GOLD
Greg Ruth

SILVER
Valentin Kopetzki

BOOK CATEGORY

GOLD
Francis Vallejo

SILVER
Chase Stone

COMIC CATEGORY

GOLD
Alex Alice

SILVER
Jeffrey Alan Love

CONCEPT ART CATEGORY

GOLD
Abe Taraky

SILVER
Danny Moll

DIMENSIONAL CATEGORY

GOLD
Patrick Masson

SILVER
Paul Komoda

EDITORIAL CATEGORY

GOLD
Qiuxin Mao

SILVER
Leonardo Santamaria

INSTITUTIONAL CATEGORY

GOLD
Jesper Ejsing

SILVER
John Jude Palencar

UNPUBLISHED CATEGORY

GOLD
Konstantin Kostadinov

SILVER
Annie Stegg Gerard

Enjoy,

John

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