2024 IMAGES Judges
Rebecca Sexton Larson
Rebecca Sexton Larson is a studio artist/curator working with historic and contemporary photographic processes. She graduated from the University of South Florida with degrees in Fine Arts (painting) and Mass Communications (journalism). Most recently she was Chief Curator at Art and History Museums – Maitland where she oversaw multiple historic sites and the artist residency program.
Sexton Larson has been awarded three Florida Individual Artist Fellowships (1998, 2002, and 2008). In 2006, she received an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida. In 2005, the City of Tampa commissioned her as its Photographer Laureate. Sexton Larson documented the Tampa ‘s visual poetry using a pinhole camera combined with hand-painted original prints. In 2015 and 2017, Larson attended the prestigious Creative Capital Professional Development Program that supports innovative artists across the country.
Sexton Larson’s photographs are in numerous significant collections throughout the country, including Polaroid; Progressive Corporate Art; Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young); Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland); Cassilhaus (Durham, NC); Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg); the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa); Historical Museum (Santa Fe); and Candela Gallery (Richmond, VA). Many of her one-of-a-kind works are in private collections.
Her photographs have been featured in photographic publications including The Polaroid Project by various curators, Poetics of Light: Contemporary Pinhole Photography by Eric Renner and Nancy Spencer, View Camera Magazine, Black and White Magazine, Afterimage, and others.
Daniel E. Stetson
Daniel E. Stetson has over 40 years of executive museum, education, and curatorial leadership experience, including at public and private universities, government-based and private not-for-profit organizations. Stetson recently retired from the position of Executive Director of the LSU Museum of Art where he served for six and a half years. He more than doubled the photography collection holdings, began a significant collection of American studio ceramics, which has significantly diversified the collection holdings and permanent collection galleries. The exhibitions’ program was broad in scope and inclusive in its content.
Before coming to LSU, Stetson served as executive director of the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn. Prior to that, he was the executive director of the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Fla., for nearly 15 years. While there we initiated the Florida Outdoor Sculpture Competition, a national project. He has been a judge for many art festivals and competitive exhibitions and projects. He Has served on major sculpture commission competition committees and grant and art review committees.
Stetson holds a BA in Art History from the State University of New York at Potsdam where he also studied studio art/photography and literature. He holds an MFA in Museology [Museum Studies] from Syracuse University and is a 2010 graduate of the Getty Museum Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles. He has been active in his field regionally and nationally, serving on numerous museum association boards, grant committees, community committees, art juries, public art projects and as an AAM accreditation team member. Stetson served as President for both the Florida Association of Art Museum Directors and the Florida Association of Museums. He stays active in the arts and curatorial field. Currently he serves on the art selection committee for the Mount Dora Center for the Arts and as advisor to the Winifred and De Villo Sloan, JR Charitable Fund. Stetson has worked in the arts and museum field in New York, Iowa, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
Stetson believes that all art is local, and that great art happens everywhere.
