Every spring, the Eric Fischl Gallery at Phoenix College transforms into an art warehouse with over 200 student submissions in 2D, photo, and digital art leaning up against every wall and 3D work filling every pedestal and table. As part of the annual Vanguard Showcase, the submissions are first judged by outside jurors in each category to determine Showcase winners – 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place – and then reviewed by the Eric Fischl Lecture Series guest artist to determine Best in Show Vanguard Award winners.
This year’s guest artist was Marilyn Minter, the New York-based painter and photographer. Minter’s career has spanned five decades of provocative, boundary-pushing art, yet what she was looking for in the artwork to award it Best in Show was simple: Love. "By love I mean — they love doing it,” she said during the jurying process. “I look for freshness, fresh vision. I don't look for skills. I don't look for correct anatomy. I look for something more."
The $2500 Eric Fischl Vanguard Awards have been funded since 2005 by acclaimed artist and Phoenix College (PC) alumnus Eric Fischl, and recognize students working in 2D, 3D, photography, and digital art. Through a longstanding partnership between Phoenix College and Phoenix Art Museum, the Best in Show Vanguard Award winning work and the Showcase winning work was displayed in a one-night Vanguard Award exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the Eric Fischl Lecture Series. The Vanguard Showcase is now on display at the Phoenix College Eric Fischl Gallery through May 7.
2026 Vanguard Award recipients
Ellie Gratrix — 2D: Melancholy and Blaze
Gratrix, who is pursuing an associate’s degree, began studying at Phoenix College in summer 2024. She submitted two pastel figure studies drawn from live models in class. Working with only 10 to 15 minutes per pose, she produced portraits charged with emotional intensity. Minter was immediately drawn to the eyes.
"I've never received something like this," Gratrix said of winning. "It was very surreal." She plans to put the prize money toward supplies, including an easel she's been wanting. In the fall, she'll continue with art history and 2D design courses while working across charcoal, oil, and digital media.
Lila Rodriguez — 3D: Shadow Jug
Rodriguez's ceramic piece began as an accident — a pitcher whose rim she ruined on the wheel — and became something entirely original. She let the clay set, squished it, cut shapes into the surface, and then held her phone flashlight above it on a banding wheel, spinning it to find how the cutouts cast shadows. That lighting process gave the piece both its name and its surface design.
"I call it a shadow jug," Rodriguez said. She also used underglaze chalks left over from a previous semester, a material she was trying for the first time. A self-taught potter who found her community first at Pip's Coffee & Clay and then at Phoenix College — where she signed up for ceramics on a lucky last-minute opening in professor Tiffany Bailey’s class — Rodriguez is now in her third year in the studio. The award, she said, "will definitely help me fund future semesters, if not potential travel" for residencies and workshops.
Akie Clark — Photography: Community
Clark's winning photograph was taken at the Desert Botanical Garden and depicts a large tree looming over a cluster of smaller plants — an image she described as evoking protection, interdependence, and the need to work together. Clark, who is a former kindergarten through third-grade teacher, saw in the composition something that reminded her of a classroom: one presence sheltering many. "I feel like right now we need to work together to survive," she said.
Clark began taking film photography classes at Phoenix College in spring 2025 after a friend pointed her toward the program. She's been exploring the possibility of commercial photography as a second career. Her photograph was singled out during the jurying process as a standout — a quiet image with genuine feeling.
Jade Trujillo — Digital Art: Sweat Tour
Trujillo, who has been studying Graphic Desgin at Phoenix College for two years, created her winning work from a class assignment that asked students to create a concert poster of a show the student wanted to attend. Recently drawn to the Hyperpop genre, Trujillo researched the upcoming shows of the British singer and songwriter Charli XCX, whose band is known to be part of club culture. That research provided the foundation for her use of a female torso wearing a bikini top in the digital image. Trujillo layered text on top of her skin to make it look like a sunburn, “like she had been out partying all day.”
“I wanted to make it really bold, to catch the viewer’s eye, because that’s what her music is,” said Trujillo. Shocked at winning the award, she said, “I didn’t think I would win, let alone have my work displayed.” She plans to use the award money to buy a new computer so she can keep making digital art.
Vanguard Showcase Competition Winners (1st–3rd Place)
While the Vanguard Awards represent Best in Show, the broader Vanguard Showcase recognizes outstanding student work across categories through additional juried awards.
2D
1st: Alessandra Deciga Santiago — Lose My Cool
2nd: Mason Whatley — Duality
3rd: Kimberly Harris — Kaleidoscope Kitchen
3D
1st: Monica Castillo — FnB
2nd: Jorge Hernández Chacón — Sculptural Bowl #1
3rd: Karen Graham — Bernadette
Photography
1st: Justice Greene — A Moment of Peace
2nd: Aaron Hedgepeth — Glenn Street
3rd: Heather Dueñas — Finding My Way
Digital Art
1st: Melissa Leor — Observations From a Shopping Cart
2nd: Yahaira Camano — Spirit
3rd: Moisés Argueta — Artificial Feeling
The Vanguard Showcase: Juried Student Exhibition is on view in the Phoenix College Eric Fischl Gallery from April 14 to May 7. The gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 6 pm.
Eric Fischl’s solo exhibition, Stories Told, is on view in the Phoenix Art Museum’s Steele Gallery through June 14.