Positive / Negative Prospectus
Positive/Negative 41 National Juried Art Exhibition
Juror: Dr. Brittany webb, Museum of Fine Arts Houston
April 1 to 25, 2026, Tipton-Ashe Galleries
401 Ashe St., Downtown Johnson City, Tennessee
Online call for submission via Slideroom starts this fall semester,
deadline on February 20, 2026
https://etsu.slideroom.com/#/permalink/program/87572
April 1 to 25, 2026, Tipton-Ashe Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee
Online call for submission via Slideroom Deadline: February 20, 2026
Application fee $40 (up to 3 entries)
The Positive/Negative is a national juried art exhibition, organized yearly since 1985, to provide the regional communities in Tennessee, and Southwest Appalachian region including Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and other border states access to dynamic contemporary art practices that explore current directions in visual art. For more than 40 years, the Positive/Negative exhibitions serve as platform for dialogue to promote diversity, creative excellence and innovative thinking within the academic and regional communities.
Open to all US-based artists, 18 years and above. All 2D, 3D and video work are accepted (within size limitations, work must not exceed 5 ft in any direction, 100 lbs, longer than 15 min video; 250mb video upload or send link to download video). Artists are responsible for the round trip shipment cost, please hand deliver or ship your work to arrive on or before March 25, 2026. The Slocumb Galleries shall provide insurance during display and storage, kindly fill up the Loan/Insurance form and send with work together with prepaid shipping label. All works must be original and not AI generated. 3D or installation may have multiple views included on one file per entry. Best of Show: $500 cash prize plus 3-5 Honorable Mention.
About the Juror: Dr. Brittany Webb is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in Texas. Since 2018, Dr. Webb has curated extensive roster of exhibitions working with the PAFA collection and contemporary artists. These have included, most recently, Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden (2023); Gift/Deeds: Collectors at PAFA (2022); From the Ground Up: Artists & the Built Environment (2021); and Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists & the Politics of Scale (2021), which she co-curated with PAFA curator of contemporary art, Jodi Throckmorton. In addition, Dr. Webb developed a collecting program for PAFA’s 20th-century holdings, adding to the permanent collection more than 200 works of art by more than 50 artists, including Laura Aguilar, Kwame Brathwaite, Lola Flash, Gregory Gillespie, Maren Hassinger, Bill Hutson, Joyce Kozloff, Lee Krasner, Doris Lee, Alfred Leslie, Agnes Martin, Robert Neal, Louise Nevelson, Gordon Parks, John Rhoden, Charles Searles, Didier William, and Purvis Young. Prior to PAFA, Dr. Webb was a curatorial and research assistant at the African American Museum in Philadelphia (2014–18), working on a range of special exhibitions.
Dr. Webb’s most recent publications include her contribution for Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art, a major catalogue that accompanies the reinstallation of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s American-art galleries on the occasion of its 200th anniversary; another for the forthcoming Birmingham Museum of Art collection catalogue Roll Call: 200 Years of Black American Art; and Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden (2023). Her academic appointments include serving as an assistant professor at PAFA and as a thesis-committee member for graduate students there and at the University of Delaware and University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Webb received a Ph.D. in anthropology from Temple University, in 2018, and a B.A. in political science from the University of Southern California, in 2005.
For more information, please email contrera@etsu.edu