Judges
Hans Ever
Hans Evers has over 30 years of experience in art education at the secondary and post secondary level. Born in Curaçao and raised in The Hague, Netherlands, he received his Bachelors degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, and his MFA in Sculpture and MA in Art History from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Boston. Hans taught art, design and art theory at the undergraduate and graduate levels in New England for 8 years before going into art college admissions. He worked at the Massachusetts College of Art and SMFA before becoming Associate Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He also worked as USA Liaison for CENTRO diseño-cine-televisión in Mexico City, and Head of Admissions, Marketing and Communication at the Willem de Kooning Akademie in Rotterdam.
From 2007-2013, Hans was Director of College Advising and AP 3D Sculpture teacher at Design and Architecture Senior High School in Miami. He was president and founder of the International Portfolio Review Forum (Pre-view), which organized and hosted portfolio review forums in different parts of the world, as well as portfolio development institutes for Asian students in the USA. From 2014-2015 he was director of Exhibitions and External programming at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach and From 2016-2017 he was hired as Dean to start up a specialty Arts High School in Shenzhen China. Hans taught sculpture as adjunct faculty at the New World School of the Arts from 2017-2020. Throughout these years he has consulted for art colleges such as MICA and arts organizations such as YoungArts in Miami. Since 2020 Hans teaches AP 2D and AP 3D art and is Art Department Chair at DASH.
Hans is a certified OUVP Captain, Board Member at the Miami Yacht Club, US Distributor of the iFLY15 foiling catamaran, and an avid catamaran sailor and racer.
Daniel Perron
Executive Recruiter actively working in the South Florida and New York markets with a focus on senior level positions in both Non-Profit and For-Profit organizations. Long time Miami resident with a strong involvement in the Arts: current Board Chair of the Frost Art Museum at FIU and Vice Chair of Seraphic Fire.
Tori Arpad-Cotta
Tori Arpad-Cotta’s site-based practice ranges deep, into the rusted remnants of farms past, and far into the as yet unbuilt places accessible only by foot and kayak. She has worked as Artist-in-Residence in AIRIE–Everglades National Park, the Center for Land Use, and Land Arts of the American West, a field-study program at University of New Mexico. Arpad-Cotta received a Florida State Cultural Council Artist’s Fellowship and NCECA Emerging Artist Award. Exhibitions include the Shumen Biennial, Bulgaria, and others internationally since 1996. Her work is featured in Land Arts of the American West by Bill Gilbert & Chris Taylor, Confrontational Ceramics by Judith S. Schwartz, and Ceramics: Mastering the Craft by Richard Zakin. Arpad-Cotta teaches art at Florida International University, chairs the Art + Art History Department, and works the earth on a few acres in the Redland Agricultural District.