(Click on Headline Above to download/view prospectus)

Buenaventura Art Association is gathering the best recent works by talented amateur and professional artists from throughout Southern California and the nation to showcase in Ventura early next year.

BAA’s 33rd annual Open Competition will be displayed Feb. 9-March 2, 2019, in the Martin V. and Martha K. Smith Pavilion at the Museum of Ventura County, 100 E. Main St., Ventura. Two- and three-dimensional original artworks offered for sale are eligible for online-only entry at www.buenaventuraartassociation.org. Entry deadline is midnight Jan. 26, with notification of acceptance via email on Jan. 29.

Cash awards and association memberships are the prizes. First, second and third places will earn $500, $350 and $250, respectively, and one-year memberships. Four honorable mentions will come with $100 prizes and six-month memberships.

An opening reception and awards ceremony will be 5-7 p.m. Feb. 9.

The fee for each piece submitted is $15 for BAA members and $20 for nonmembers, plus a $3 processing fee per total entry. A $10 fee will be added for works over 4 feet in any direction. Complete entry and shipping specifications are in a prospectus on BAA’s website.

Juror for the competition is noted California painter William Wray. He worked in animation as a teen in the late 1980s before studying fine art at The Art Students League in New York, then worked in commercial art for 15 years on the “Ren and Stimpy Show,” comic books, and as a contributor to Mad Magazine. Wray returned to oil painting in 2005, eventually finding success and satisfaction exploring what he terms “realistic abstraction.”

BAA’s new gallery home in Studio 30 at Bell Arts Factory, 432 N. Ventura Ave., is open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. For more about the 64-year-old nonprofit artists cooperative and its programs, visit www.buenaventuraartassociation.org or call 805-648-1235 during gallery hours.