8/14/08

Contacts:
Christian Vandehaar, Integrated Studio Arts, cvande@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, College of Design Communications, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

ISU art student wins Best of Show in Iowa State Fair exhibition

AMES, Iowa -- Christian Vandehaar, senior in integrated studio arts at Iowa State University, earned Best of Show honors in the Fine Arts Exhibition at the 2008 Iowa State Fair.

Vandehaar’s chalk pastel drawing, "St. Matthew and the Angel," was chosen from among 466 works accepted for this year’s show, which is one of the largest in Iowa.

The winning entry was Vandehaar's final project for his spring-semester figure drawing class, taught by assistant professor Brent Holland.

"My inspiration was Caravaggio's ‘St. Matthew and the Angel,'" Vandehaar said. “I was attracted to this subject matter because I felt I could put my own contemporary twist on Caravaggio’s masterpiece and express my growing faith and struggles I was dealing with.”

Vandehaar said Holland urged him to think critically and consider different ways to approach the subject. "He challenged me, and I respond to challenges."

Vandehaar, of Altoona, has entered work in the State Fair exhibition for the past six years, but he didn’t think his recent drawing would even make it to the fair. Vandehaar spent two months this summer studying in Italy with the College of Design's Rome Program. He intended to have his parents submit the piece since the entry deadline fell while he was gone, but he didn't finish framing it before he left for Rome.

"My parents really wanted me to enter it, so after a few e-mails and phone calls explaining how to put together the frame I had made, they managed to get it all together very nicely," he said.

Vandehaar didn't know how well the effort paid off until he walked into the Iowa State Fair's Cultural Center and saw his drawing hanging in the space reserved for the Best of Show.

"I was ecstatic," he said. "It's very gratifying because the State Fair was the first contest I entered my art in when I started taking it seriously in high school, and just being accepted was enough of an award for me.

"I thought maybe I would be good enough to get Best of Show in five or 10 years, so I was a little shocked," he said.

Vandehaar receives a $600 cash prize in addition to a purple ribbon and the satisfaction of having his award-winning work viewed by thousands of fair-goers. The exhibition, and the fair, run through Aug. 17.

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