2023 Judges

Dr. Ruta Saliklis was born and raised in Chicago, where she started making art at a young age and was profoundly influenced by school field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently teaching in the Fine Arts Departments of Cuesta College and Allan Hancock College. Prior to that, Ruta worked at the SLO Botanical Garden, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Cal Poly, San Diego Zoo, Ball State University, and the Allentown Art Museum. She has curated numerous exhibitions. She received her Ph.D. in Textiles and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MFA in Museum Studies from Syracuse University, and a BA in Comprehensive Studio Art with a minor in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Saliklis lives in San Luis Obispo with her husband, Ed, and a labradoodle named Frankie.

Guy Kinnear is a figurative magic realist living off-the-grid in a lovely place where even GPS gets lost. There he and his family processes their reengagement with the land through creating Golems, or hand-made humans, and staging them in the local environment as a metaphor for human ingenuity as a positive solution to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Guy Kinnear has been an artist educator for over two decades, working with graduate, undergraduate, K-12, and private tutoring programs. His works have been locally and nationally reviewed in Image Magazine and American Art Collector. His works are privately collected and in the permanent collection of the SLO Museum of Art.

“I have been actively supporting the fine art community for my lifetime. The journey began early on with youth art classes at the Tucson Museum of Art. Adult life experiences have included being on staff at SLO Museum of Art and facility manager/events coordinator at SLO UMC. For more than a decade I have been curator and representing the church during the judging of the Beacon Art Show event.”