A Sneak Peek at the Winners : Selma Moskowitz and Penny Olson are the two artists who will be honored Sunday at the Century Gallery’s juried show.

The results are in on Century Gallery’s “Open Juried Competition ’95.” You read it here first.

Etan Boritzer, director of Boritzer / Gray / Hamano gallery in Santa Monica and juror for the competition, came to the Century Gallery on May 26 to select the two award winners. From 207 slide submissions by Southern California artists, he chose the 38 works that will be on view when the show opens Sunday.

Sponsored by the Northeast Valley Arts Council, the show begins at 1 p.m. with a reception and awards presentation. The winners will be given tandem solo shows at the gallery in August.

And the winners are (drum roll, please): Selma Moskowitz and Penny Olson.

Moskowitz received the award for her non-representational, acrylic on vinylized-cotton painting, “3-95.”

It reflects her process of alternately applying and sanding down layers of paint, and her use of an iridescent interference acrylic paint. With light, this paint manifests varied colors and textures for viewers to see as they move around the painting.

Olson’s award is for her cyanotype photograph, “Streambed 2.” The cyanotype, a forerunner to the blueprint, is one of the earliest photographic processes.

Each artist who entered the competition was allowed to send up to three slides. Of the process for selecting the work on view, Boritzer said: “The things I picked are really diverse. I was looking for quality. I looked for some kind of originality. I put my personal likes and dislikes aside and just tried to read the pictures.”

A lot of the work that didn’t make it into the show was “too familiar, too redundant,” he said. “The next level is work that has talent, but doesn’t have ideas, that’s derivative.”

When a piece displayed talent and ideas, Boritzer then questioned, “Is it relevant?” At that point, the selection process became a matter of his own “education and intuition,” he said.

A few pieces that made it into the show don’t necessarily exhibit the quality or originality of which Boritzer spoke. With a mischievous grin, he said that from seeing the slides his curiosity was piqued and he “just had to see” these pieces.

In choosing the award winners from the actual works, he found some of his picks for the show based on slides were more commercial than artistic. “I’m coming from a fine-art field,” he said, “a field with a history. In the end, it has to be not what is most pleasing, but what is most challenging to me as the viewer.”

This exhibit is the first juried show at Century Gallery since September, 1991.

Gallery director Lee Musgrave decided to organize it because lately he’d “met more artists complaining they don’t have any opportunity to show their work,” he said. The show “gives them a chance to exhibit their work and, if they haven’t before, to move into a more professional level of exhibition.”

Most of the artists Musgrave met when they brought their works to the gallery were “very excited” to be a part of the show, he said. “Seeing the enthusiasm in these artists made me feel I should do this every summer.”

Other artists represented: Dean Andrews, Jan Book, Richard Bruland, Eleanor Kay Diehl, Davis & Davis, Eudice Feder, Margaret Gallegos, Michael Giancristiano, Yuval Golan, Jennifer Joanou, DeWayne Johnson, Hiroshi Kobayashi, Jan Kunkle, Al Lemire, Mel Menkin, Terry Rose, Frank Rozasy/Ray Avery, Martha Saudek, Mahara Sinclaire, Tree Stokes, George Tapley Jr., Rhoda Weissman, Eugene Yelchin and Penelope Young.

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Open Juried Competition ’95.”

Location: Century Gallery, 13000 Sayre St., Sylmar.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Ends June 30.

Call: (818) 362-3220.