2010 Best Visual Artist
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28.63% Terry Ratliff*
Others with Votes (more than one):
* On the ballot | 
Well, Terry Ratliff did it again. The Fort Wayne painter landed his 10th Whammy award as Best Visual Artist. Ratliff said he doesn't get "super excited about winning. I appreciate it, and I appreciate what whatzup does for local artists and musicians, but there are certain local artists I'm in awe of. Art preference is not art judgment. But I've won so many times now, I don't want to lose." He was both correct and in a way prescient. There is an abundance of fantastic, original artists in northeast Indiana in general and Fort Wayne in particular. And while Whammy voters may prefer Ratliff's work on their ballots, that's not to say the work of the other 2010 Best Visual Artist nominees is less deserving of space on their walls. Ratliff would obviously be the first person to give props to his fellow local artists. He's currently working with Charley Shirmeyer of Northside Galleries to get his compatriots' pieces into hospitals and businesses around Fort Wayne, and he's paired up with Arts United Director Jim Sparrow that would bring large murals to downtown. In addition to all of these side projects, Ratliff continues to run his Ratart studio downtown and recently opened a gallery where he meets with clients by appointment. The man is busy, in other words, but not too busy to produce work that is once whimsical and precise, expansive and personal. His abstractions burst the confines of the brain, and his portraits and still lifes exude the intimate. But that's what the best art is supposed to do: expand the brain and challenge the emotions. That's what Ratliff's art does. Ratliff is part of a broad community of inventive and professional visual artists, and each year the Whammy competition may prove tougher and tougher. For the time being, though, it seems Ratliff's desire not to lose has turned predictive. (Deborah Kennedy) |
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