NEW Kingston-based Mutual Gallery opened its annual Art Fresh exhibit to a full house of aficionados on Thursday.

The exhibition — which runs until April 20 — features work from 15 visual artists selected from 19 submissions. Picturesque photographs and serene minimalist paintings contrast with rugged textiles and vibrant colours within the space in a mixture of mystery and metaphor.

The artists — a blend of recent graduates from the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, American colleges and local self-taught upstarts — toyed with themes varying from social commentary to relationships with nature and the organic and explorations of the self.

According to Gilou Bauer, director and curator of the Mutual Gallery, the aim of the exhibition is to encourage artists to produce original artworks and to promote a crop of artists who are genuinely keen on pursuing a career in art.

“We had a really good response this year, more submissions than we’ve had in the past. We selected what we thought were the more striking and interesting pieces and we think that there is great potential for these artists to continue to grow and refine their work and make a name for themselves as working artists in the future,” Bauer told The Sunday Observer.

She also highlighted the importance of showing young artists the distinction between making commercial paintings purely for sale and doing work that is more artistic.

Among the artists selected were Cavel Johnson, Sashawana Buckland, Leo Rhule, Jermaine Morgan, Corey Breneisen, Nicholas Rose, Esther Chin, Lisa Golding, Stacy-Ann Hyde, sculptor Shediene Fletcher, self-taught artists Aundre France, Christopher James and Rohan Cargill and photographers Amanda Gibson and Marc Thomas.

“In the past, we have had video artists and installations, so it seems that artists now have a better understanding of what we’re looking for and how we can help them, so we’re looking forward to an even larger submission of work next year,” she said.