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Art Melt preview

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There are some exceptional pieces this year, then there are those pieces that make you scratch your head, wondering how it could ever make it into the city’s largest art social of the year. Either way, head downtown this evening to the Forum 35’s fifth-annual Art Melt and decide which pieces are your favorite, and which are not so great.

The party kicks off at 6:30 p.m. in the Shaw Center with a cash bar, live music and performance art. Get a sneak peek of the artwork here.

The winner of this year’s Art Melt: Korean native Haejung Lee of Baton Rouge, who entered Welcome. This amazing piece “reflects Lee’s immersion into American culture,” crossing Korean and western traditions, according to this year’s Art Melt juror Sean Ulmer, curator of the Collections and Exhibitions at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art in Iowa. It’s evocative of partially open doorways. A must-see in person!

Second place went to Elizabeth Noble for her Fume Room, which featured a woman in a bathroom getting ready to go out. Dress patterns peak out through the paint, which inspires the conversation of measuring up to the world and to our selves. Brunner Gallery chose Noble’s work to exhibit later this year.

Third place went to Troy Dugas for his Radial Form, Bueno de Portero, a magnificent 5-foot doily made of cigar straps. Ulmer called the piece a "push and pull of genders," in that the lace is associated with women, and cigars with men.

Honorable Mention awards went to Laharpe by Frank Relle, Half Suit by Eric Wiggins, who also won the Country Roads Editors Choice Award, 317 Pleasant St., LA by Japbeth A. Storlie, Sweet Eyes by Elise Toups and White Dresses by Bevil Knapp.

If you don’t like swimming through a sea of people—and there will be thousands of people compacted into one downtown city block—the Art Melt exhibit at Brunner Gallery continues through July 20.