2026 Judges

The Fairhope festival is a juried event. Each year three judges are selected to evaluate the almost 200 participants in the show on a predefined set of criteria. They select winners by scoring each individual artist and the artists with the highest overall scores get the largest awards.

Devontae Knight

Atlanta, Georgia

Rooted in memories of the Deep South, Devontae Knight’s work begins with the belief that beauty often emerges from unlikely or overlooked places—sometimes as the only light within adversity. This perspective drives his focus on honoring what modern society tends to discard: creativity, originality, and the subtle craftsmanship found in the ordinary.

Devontae explores these themes by positioning subjects against expansive, uncluttered backgrounds, creating intentional contrasts that reflect both artistic tradition and personal identity. Over time, he has developed a signature impasto style using oils and a palette knife, paired with handcrafted frames incorporating materials such as eggshell, fabric, mirrors, and mosaics — techniques passed down from his mentor, Nall Hollis. The process is raw, tactile, and intuitive, embracing imperfection as a source of depth and resonance.

Website:https://www.donebyknight.com/

Through my works, I seek to evoke the emotions that linger just beneath the surface—reminders of the beauty, resilience, and individuality that persist despite a world increasingly drawn to uniformity.”
-Devontae Knight

Liz Lane

Birmingham, Alabama

Liz Lane is an abstract expressionist that uses thoughts, emotions and the world surrounding her to create tangible visions of color and movement. Using acrylic and oil on canvas, her paintings are alchemy of an internal world trying to process the external. Liz Lane explores the energy behind nature, humanity and movement in her abstracts.

Lane has balanced running a business in a changing world - from commercial galleries to now an open studio. She balances this with community driven environmental activism and being a mom. She and her husband currently live in Birmingham, Alabama.

Website: https://www.lizlanegallery.com/

Jayne Morgan

Bluff Park, Alabama (when not traveling in her airstream)

Jayne Morgan travels across the country in her Airstream trailer showcasing her oil and acrylic paintings. Her 1964 Airstream is regularly the subject of her work, as well as landscapes, flowers in jars, and her signature subject - the Honey Bear.

Growing up Jayne's family would sit down to dinner and always had a bear shaped honey bottle to put on bread for dessert. After graduating from SCAD, she knew she wanted to do art festivals but didn’t have much direction. An artist she admired told her she should be ‘the Honey bear lady’, people would remember that.

Jayne started painting honey bear after honey bear and people did remember. Her hometown of Hoover, Alabama used the Honey bear for their anti-littering campaign and over 20 Honey bear signs were placed around the town.

When Jayne is not traveling, she is teaching art classes in her studio in Bluff Park, Alabama and volunteering for people with special needs. Recently she has gotten into film and television, working on movie sets, a music video and commercials. Some of her clients include Harry Styles, Jeff Goldblum, and Kurt Russel.

Follow along with her artwork and adventures on: https://www.jaynemorgan.com/