It would be easy to call these artists the Lucky 13, and that they are. Competition for the attention of art lovers and patrons has never been tougher in South Florida, home to thousands of artists who toil, sometimes in anonymity, at home and in their studios.

But the winners of the 2008 South Florida Cultural Consortium Juried Exhibition, chosen from a pool of 361 aspirants, also have managed to turn their entries into a visually exciting exhibit at the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale.

The wealth of imagination and attention to detail poured into painting, video and installation elevates Thirteen_08 beyond an ordinary contest exhibit into one that surprises. The show also marks the 20th anniversary of the Consortium, an alliance of arts agencies in Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe, Palm Beach and Martin counties, which awards $15,000 and $7,500 fellowships.

Some of the winning artists, such as Miami's Wendy Wischer and her glittering light sculptures covered with mirrored tiles, command quite a bit of space. Others, like Janet Gold of Coral Springs, delight with a salon-style assembly of small-scale, vintage collages that remind us of the youthful scribbles we made in our best-loved books.

''This year is particularly strong, and we were able to work with artists and expand what they may have presented for the competition,'' says Irvin M. Lippman, the museum's executive director. ``It's really a dialogue between artists in South Florida.''

The artists run the gamut of backgrounds and experience, from the newly graduated to those emerging on the scene or in mid-career. In addition to Wischer and Gold, they are Harumi Abe, Paul Aho, Diane Arrieta, Lou Anne Colodny, Ivan Toth Depeña, Marie Mennes, Robert M. Nathans, Carol Prusa, Jen Stark, David Szant-Gyorgy Pollitt and Michelle Weinberg.

Here's a preview:

HARUMI ABE

''My interest is in everyday life,'' says Harumi Abe, a 27-year-old painter from Hollywood who came to the United States from a city near Tokyo eight years ago. ``Some people make art about war and all that social stuff, which I understand, but [the subject of] art doesn't have to be outside of your own world.''

Abe's inspiration comes from her views of ''early life'' as a transplant adjusting to U.S. culture juxtaposed against her new life as the wife of a former artist and now bookseller, a South Florida native of Jewish-Polish-Irish ancestry.

''I have my American family,'' she says, ``and it's about being American in a weird way, not like really American as if you were born here.''

All the paintings in her winning series depict the same self-portrait figure. Harumi x 3 offer three views of her frolicking in bed. Xmas + Harumi x 3 is an ode to her first Christmas tree. Backyard is a tribute to her newfound love of fishing with her husband. Her jellyfish fall from trees, sort of like her luck.

''I never had that in my life,'' she says of the Christmas tree, ``and I was really happy and wanted to paint it.''

In each painting, ''I create a story,'' Abe says.

``I believe that in everyday life, inside your own space inside of your house, you're able to daydream more. There is some kind of narrative, but not like a set story but an open-ended story.''

LOU ANNE COLODNY

At 64, Lou Anne Colodny is a multimedia artist living in Fort Lauderdale. But she's a veteran of Miami-Dade's arts community, where she was involved for 15 years with the Center of Contemporary Art, known as COCA, which evolved into today's Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA.

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