WORLD’S BEST PORTRAITURE BY GALICANO, MCCOY, LIU, GOLOYAD, TAN, UNKHOFF & CASSELLS

Thom Bierdz
6 min readOct 21, 2018

Portrait artists from Philippines, USA, China, Ukraine, Germany and Canada receive highest scores in Category 32 of the 2018 AMERICAN ART AWARDS.

This year the American Art Awards (www.AmericanArtAwards.com), juried by the 25 Best Galleries & Museums In America (listed below), had online art images in 50 categories submitted from artists in 59 countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Great Britain, Greece, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela.

The 1st Place to 6th Place winners in all 50 categories will be revealed in the news about a category a day — stretching into November, making this one of the longest winner announcements of any art competition in the world.

R. GALICANO’s Biography

Romulo Noel Galicano born in Carcar, Cebu Philippines, 1945. He started painting landscape, studying direct observations of colors from nature, and following Leonardo da Vinci’s advice that nature is the best teacher. This also served as preparation for figures.

When he migrated to Manila, he became adept in Portraiture, as a means of gaining more advanced knowledge of the human figure, especially the physiological state of the figure. By painting portraiture for many years, this had eventually allowed him to advance to the Grand Manner of figure painting and genre painting, which he began nearly thirty years ago.

Galicano’s work is technically academic in rendering but his philosophical approach is basically ABSTRACT. In judging his work (and those of others) his first concern is the INTEGRITY of the whole. The style and subject is only secondary.

“The vertical lines in his painting are reconciliation between opposite poles and the merging of the SUBJECTIVE and the OBJECTIVE. Creating a new meaningful work of art.”

He believes that every artist no matter what his stature is, should never be a prisoner of himself of his philosophy, reputation, success and above all his vanity.

The direction of every artist should be FREEDOM.

STEVE MCCOY

Steve was born in Indianola, Iowa and his attraction to art was the result of growing up in a creative family. As a small boy he remembers watching his mother paint figurines with very small and delicate brushes. He had older brothers that were creative and even though his father was an auto mechanic, he could do amazing creative things with a blow torch and iron.

His oldest brother gave him an oil painting set for Christmas when he was nine years old and that got him started in painting. He is self taught and got his education from reading art books and magazines. He spent 33 years as an illustrator/designer. He has been an Art Director for the Nebraska Medical Center, illustrated 2 medical text books, night Art Director for the Omaha World Herald, had his own design studio and helped with the birth of the Creative Center of Omaha, a post secondary school for the advancement of graphic arts. He served as President of the Graphic Arts Guild in Omaha, Nebraska.

After retiring he decided to return to oil painting. He feels like he is starting all over and is rediscovering the joy of the journey of making art.

He has painted the cover for Arthur Feidler’s Greatest Hits album, a portrait for President Johnson and has numerous drawings and paintings owned by private collectors. He has exhibited in the Upper Mid-West Biannual in North Dakota, one man shows at Joan Kuyper Farver Art Gallery, First Unitarian Church, Gallery at the Village and Edgewater Galleries. He has won awards at the juried shows of the Iowa State Fair and the 107th Des Moines Womens Club Art Show. He has been juried into the National OPA 2016 Juried Salon Show, the NOAPS 26th & 27th Annual Show, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th annual Art of the Heartlands National Exhibition and the 2018 SAAG National Juried Show. First place winner, Artist of the Month Online Competition, Special Merit Award winner of Light, Space & Time Online Art Gallery. NOAPS 2017 international online show.

CATEGORY 32. PORTRAIT OF SOMEONE NOT FAMOUS

1ST PLACE-TIE ROMULO N. GALICANO PHILIPPINES www.romulogalicano.com Oil on canvas.
“The Modern Holocaust (The Maguindanao Massacre)” 63x96”

1ST PLACE-TIE STEVEN MCCOY USA steve@mymasterstouch.net “Prey” 17.5x23" Oil on gessoed Masonite.

2ND PLACE SIHUA LIU CHINA 363902716@qq.com “Daydream” 50x34cm Pencil on paper.

3RD PLACE-TIE BOGDAN GOLOYAD UKRAINE goloyadart@yahoo.com “Marta” 16x12" Oil on canvas.

3RD PLACE-TIE DING TAN CHINA adwgjyxdv@163.com “Salome” 30x40cm Oil on canvas.

4TH PLACE-TIE STEVEN MCCOY USA steve@mymasterstouch.net “Chief Thundercloud” 22x28" Oil on canvas.

4TH PLACE-TIE RAMONA UNKHOFF GERMANY www.ramona-unkhoff.de
“Look Back“ 297x420mm Polychromos pencil on paper.

5TH PLACE LAARA CASSELLS CANADA www.laaracassells.com “Norah” 43x32" Acrylic on canvas.

6TH PLACE ROMULO N. GALICANO PHILIPPINES ww.romulogalicano.com 45x35" Oil on canvas.“Wisdom Of Juan (Si Juan Ay May Pangarap Din)”

This year’s 25 Best Galleries & Museums asked to vote on art were:

BEST IN ALABAMA — ALABAMA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
BEST IN ARKANSAS — FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM
BEST IN CALIFORNIA — REVOLVER GALLERY
BEST IN COLORADO — COLORADO FINE ARTS CENTER AT COLORADO COLLEGE
BEST IN FLORIDA — LIK FINE ART MIAMI + LIK FINE ART KEY WEST
BEST IN ILLINOIS — TRICKSTER ART GALLERY
BEST IN KANSAS — BIRGER SANDZEN MEMORIAL GALLERY
BEST IN KENTUCKY — E&S GALLERY
BEST IN LOUISIANA — NEWCOMB ART MUSEUM
BEST IN MASSACHUSETTS — BOSTON SCULPTORS GALLERY
BEST IN MISSISSIPPI — THE OHR-O’KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART
BEST IN MISSOURI — UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI MUSEUM OF ART AND ARCHEOLOGY
BEST IN NEBRASKA — KIECHEL FINE ART
BEST IN NEVADA — THE METROPOLITAN GALLERY OF LAS VEGAS ART MUSEUM
BEST IN OHIO — LEE HAYDEN GALLERY
BEST IN OKLAHOMA — JOSEPH GIEREK FINE ART
BEST IN OREGON — JORDAN SCHNITZER MUSEUM of ART
BEST IN PENNSYLVANIA — JAMES A. MICHENER ART MUSEUM
BEST IN SOUTH CAROLINA — MARY MARTIN GALLERY OF FINE ART
BEST IN SOUTH DAKOTA — SOUTH DAKOTA ART MUSEUM
BEST IN TEXAS — ART ON 5TH
BEST IN UTAH — THE LEONARDO
BEST IN WASHINGTON — MARYHILL MUSEUM OF ART
BEST IN WEST VIRGINIA — WEST VIRGINIA STATE MUSEUM
BEST IN WISCONSIN — MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART

Enter art at www.AmericanArtAwards.com

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Thom Bierdz

One of Medium’s TOP ART CONTRIBUTORS, award-winning author, actor, film-maker, painter. 12 books: 6 on art. President of WAA & AAA & ACCA.