WHY are Open Calls for Entries Deadlines extended - and what does it mean?

Are you ambivalent about the phrase 

"Submissions for our Open Call are now EXTENDED until ...."

Back in April, Kris Mercer Art said something on her FB Page which I very much identify with - but didn't see at the time. 

Ok. It's gotta be said. My pet hate is this line: Submissions for our Open Call are now extended until ....
Does that mean the submissions so far have been rubbish and you need more or what!
I have made sure that I have got everything together, submit, then only to find that they extend the deadline.
I'm sorry but what is so difficult about picking a date and sticking to it?
If there are artists who haven't yet submitted but wanted to, basically, tough. Get your act together and submit on time and please, please, please organisers stick to the deadline.
Thoughts please Making A Mark

However I saw it some several weeks later and responded AND made a note to make it the topic of a blog post - which I'm addressing today 

I responded to her comment as follows

It means the submissions they have received so far have underwhelmed.

Or they've not been very good at marketing this year.

Or somebody messed up the website and/or social media.

or somebody made the requirements just too onerous for anybody to bother

Or all the above. Take your pick! 

An Open Call Extension suggests.....

... a number of things

This is something of an expansion on my shorthand response above.

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 to tour UK

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 is currently on show at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London E14 0JY. All the shortlisted and award-winning drawings can be seen at the exhibition - which finishes on Wednesday 16 October 2024 - prior to the exhibition touring to Salisbury, Falmouth, Dundee, and Manchester - until October 2025.

View of The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 exhibition
first prize winner on extreme right

The Exhibition

The exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf is free to visit from 11am to 6pm. 

Another view of The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 exhibition

Future Venues

• The Salisbury Museum (26 October 2024 - 26 January 2025), The Kings House, 65 The Close, Salisbury SP1 2EN
• Falmouth Art Gallery (1 February - 10 May 2025) Municipal Buildings, The Moor, Falmouth TR11 2RT
• Drawing Projects UK (14 May - 10 August 202 Dundee DD1 1EX
• Manchester Waterside Gallery (18 August - 11 October 2025) 1 Waterside, Sale M33 7ZF

From a worldwide submission of contemporary drawings

• 94 drawings by 88 artists were shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 exhibition.
• 21 drawings by 20 practitioners were shortlisted for the Working Drawing Award. 

The selected artists include an ex-teacher of mine! They are:

Max L Adams / Elisa Alaluusua / Lucy Algar / Thomas Allen / Tim Allen / Allou / Jeanette Barnes / Geoff Bartholomew / Sophie Bartlett / Akash Bhatt / Chris Blackburn /Jane Bottery / Eric Butcher / Ruth Chambers / Sarah Chapman / Sara Choudhrey / Hyeyeon Chung / Sara Clark / Gary Clough / David Conway / Aleksandra Czuja / Gerry Davies / Gary Dennis / Emma Douglas / Sarah Duyshart / Jamie Eade / Roy Eastland / Sian Ellis Tillott / Mark John Evans / Kristian Evju / Jonathan Farr / Nicolas Feldmeyer / Celu Ferreira / Charlie Ford / Todd Fuller / Stefan Gant / Ann Gillies / Adam Gray / Christopher Green / Catherine Greenwood / Richard Gregory / Susie Hamilton / Simon Head / Jessica Heywood / Roland Hicks / Fiona Hingston / Ciaran Hughes / Melinda Hunt / Julia Hutton /Owen Johnson / Janette Kerr / Jen Wei Kuo / Tomasz Lacy / Gary Lawrence / Bridget Lesly / Cheryl Lewis / Jo Lewis / Shihui Li / Edward Liddle / Yutong Liu / Juliette Losq / Peter Matthews / Janet Melrose / Jamie Mills / Jilly Morris / Justine Moss / David Mumby / Hannah Naify / Simon Page / Camilo Parra/ Esteban Peña Para / Ben Platts-Mills / Keira Rathbone / Jane Reid / Abbie Schug / Charlene
Scott / Brian Shields / Ilona Skladzien / Jake Spicer / David Symonds / Emma Tabor / Sally Dee Trewartha / Marika Tyler-Clark / Felicity Warbrick / Lynda Whitehouse / Phill Wilson-Perkin/ Hamish Young / Martha Zmpounou

View of The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 exhibition

I personally found the artwork in the exhibition to be of a high quality with a lot of impressive drawings - which varied a lot in terms of media and size and techniques employed. Many of the drawings are large. Many do not employ conventional display methods. The hang is also very good.

It's certainly well worth a visit.

In my opinion it's also better than the one held last year. (see Two Drawing Awards: Winners & Future Exhibitions).

Tomorrow I'll be uploading my photographs of the exhibition to an album on my Making A Mark Facebook Page - and will be highlighting there those artworks which caught my eye.

Awards and Prizes

This 3D work won The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
(see below for more details)

All the artworks submitted were reviewed by the Judging Panel who then selected the shortlisted drawings and award-winners. The Panel was:

• Mary Evans, Artist & Director of UCL Slade School of Fine Art, 
• Gary Sangster, Curator & Writer, Co-Director of Drawing Projects UK, and 
• Jennifer Scott, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery in London - reviewed 

The four award winning drawings, collectively received £17,000.  The prizes awarded were as follows...

First Prize (£8,000) 
Out of Round: An Abbreviated Outline of British Studio Pottery
2024, steel wire, 170 x 100 x 8cm
by Max L Adams

Max L Adams' award-winning drawing references the Studio Pottery Movement, which in art history marked a shift towards fine art within the craft of ceramics, highlighting the tension between artistic freedom and traditional norms. 

‘My drawings, Out of Round, provide an outline of the Studio Pottery Movement and the subsequent flattening of its forms into icons of regional identity, anti-industrial labour, and domesticity,’’ 

Max L Adams was born in 1992 in Michigan, USA, and is now based in London. He holds an MFA in Arts & Humanities from the Royal College of Art (2023-24) and a BFA in Studio Art from Wheaton College, USA (2011-15). His work has been featured in group exhibitions such as Completion in Motion in Peckham, London (2024) and Finding Place in Crawley, West Sussex (2024). 

Second Prize (£5,000) 
(Left above): The 5th Arch, 2023
graffiti markers, drafting pencil on Bristol paper, 145 x 106cm 
by Owen Johnson. 

Owen Johnson’s award-winning drawing, The 5th Arch, represents a repeated gothic cathedral door motif. Taken from a geometric circular checkerboard arrangement, the motif is organised in a diamond structure, with the shadows of a late summer evening employed to create depth. 

‘The 5th Arch” is a drawing about a space created from memory and through repetition. The drawing is part of a series I have been developing for sometime exploring architecture, pattern and colour

Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1976, Owen Johnson has exhibited widely across the globe and has become well known for his glasswork. He holds a BA in Visual Arts from the Australian National University, Honours in Fine Arts from Monash University, Melbourne, and a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London.  He's currently a Professor at Sheridan's Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design (FAAD) which is Canada's largest art school.

Student Award (£2,000)
Window, 2024
ink on linen (diptych), 120 x 15cm
by Hyeyeon Chung. 

Student Award Winner, Hyeyeon Chung was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1992. She holds a BA in Korean traditional painting from Chung-Ang University and an MA in Fine Art: Drawing from the University of the Arts London.

‘I weave monochrome worlds, fusing scenery and memories. My creative process is marked by meticulous, almost compulsive repetition; a ritual of craftsmanship and dedication. Grounded in intuition, it possesses the precision of a printer's hand,’’

Her award-winning drawing is inspired by contemporary landscape and diasporic experiences, with a focus on cultivating awareness and fostering new perspectives with drawing a pivotal aspect of her practice. 

 

Working Drawing Award (£2,000)

Plan for Cato Mural, Year 8, Spa Fields, 2023,

watercolour on watercolour paper, 76 x 58cm

by Emma Douglas

‘‘It represents his 8th Year. Since his death, my work has evolved into a project of recording the marks he made during his life, the places that we visited and the images that linger after someone has left,’’ 

Born in London in 1965, Emma Douglas holds a BA in Fine Art from Middlesex Polytechnic and an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited in both group and solo shows across the UK including The Jerwood Drawing Prize, Flowers Gallery, Arusha Gallery and Norwich Cathedral. She currently lives in London. 

This drawing is the plan for a mural the artist installed in Spa Fields, Skinner Street, London. It is the 11th work in a series of 22 murals she is doing in memory of her son Cato who died in 2010 aged 21 years. 

Her instagram account records the prolific and various ways in which she records the life of her son Cato Heath. Each of the squares in her coloured square murals is colour coded to represent one activity - such as physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, speech therapy or Doctors appointments.  

Winner of the Working Drawing Award: Emma Douglas

The Working Drawing Award celebrates the role of drawing within architecture, design and making processes and was chosen by 

• Benjamin Derbyshire, Chair of HTA Design LLP, a leading multidisciplinary design practice, 
• Andrew Grant, Landscape Architect, Founder & Director of Grant Associates, and 
• Caroline Grewar, Director of Programme at V&A Dundee.

About the Drawing Prize

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is supported by the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust, and widely regarded as the foremost open exhibition dedicated to drawing in the United Kingdom. The 2024 edition marks the 7th year of generous support from the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust and is the 30th edition of the annual open drawing exhibition.

NOTE The Drawing Prize has had a number of names in its career - usually influenced by whoever its current sponsor is. It was founded founded in 1994 by Anita Taylor and Paul Thomas as the Rexel Derwent Open Drawing Exhibition. From 2001-2017 it became known as the Jerwood Drawing Prize from 2001 to 2017 and was delivered in partnership with Jerwood Charitable Foundation. The present sponsor is the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust who became the principal benefactor in 2018. The constant throughout is Anita Taylor.

Review: Episode 1 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2024 (Series 11)

The first episode of the new art competition to find the Portrait Artist of the Year for 2024 kicked off last night (8pm on Sky Arts)

Watch how the self portraits change with every episode. 
(I think) it's always included the winner's self portrait

The first episode of Series Eleven will be repeated at 7pm tonight on Sky Arts. If you've not yet watched, you might want to stop reading now as this review continues in the same pattern as all the reviews I've written for the last six series - since series 4 in 2018

This review post considers:

• the sitters
• the artists
• the self-portrait submissions
• themes observed during the episode - and observations on different approaches
• the portraits - and a new initiative by the marketing people
• the Judging
• the Shortlist
• Episode 1 Winner

Remembering that last year's winner was the winner of Episode 1!

Episode 1: The Sitters

The sitters for this first programme were rather Apple oriented! They were also all aged c.50+. They are:

• Hannah Waddingham (b.1974) - the very impressive actress and singer who won a Prime Time Emmy for her role in Apple's Ted Lasso - which she brought as her significant item - and was also a splendid co-host of the Final of the European Song Contest 2023. She appeared to very motivated to share her experience with her 9 year old daughter.
• Richard Madeley (b.1956) - a regular host and presenter on daytime television for the last four decades and one half of "Richard and Judy. He's also an author. One of those marmite people, you either love him or hate him. He apparently loves maps (I started to warm to him!) and brought an antique globe.
• Saskia Reeves (b.1961) - one of those actresses who appears very regularly in good programmes on our screens - most recently in Apple's Slow Horses. I had no idea she was half Dutch - but she wore wooden clogs to the show and brought the bike she has owned for the last 40+ years.

In the recurring theme this month of "how on earth did I get to be 70?", I was dismayed to realise I'm older than all of them!

Episode 1: The Artists

The Artists in Episode 1 on the steps of Battersea Arts Centre

All the artists are listed below alphabetically by surname - but are not differentiated between professional and amateur. The link to their main 'contact' site is embedded in their name and social media sites follow - if available.

As always I've dug around online, and these profiles provide more information than the programme does.

The mini bio provided in the programme skips over some rather important information about some of the participating artists

• Imogen Alabaster (Instagram) - a contemporary artist who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland. She graduated with a degree in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art in 2006. Her work has been sold from many Scottish galleries and increasingly through direct sales and commissions, for more than twenty years. Her drawings and paintings have taken on a maternal theme of late.
  
• Jione Choi (Instagram) - An artist who was born in Seoul in South Korea and now lives and works in London. She draws in graphite, on canvas and also paints in watercolour. Her artistic practice is based upon memories - how they appear and disappear.  She received an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Art  in 2019. She has won numerous prizes: recently, she has won the RWS Young Artist Award 24 and RWS Publicity Prize 23 awarded by the Royal Watercolour Society. In addition, two of her works have been included in ‘Drawing Biennial 24’ organised by Drawing Room. She also won the First prize of Art Gemini Prize 9th edition. 
• Nerissa Deeks (Instagram) - a charity manager from Woking. She loves drawing and painting. Her tiny self portrait submission was painted in two hours using acrylics. I thought it was sublime! It was part of an online challenge she participated in to do a self portrait every day - which sounds to me like a jolly good workout for anybody thinking of applying for next year!
• Dónal Geheran (Instagram) - an artist from Dublin. He draws using pen and ink and a biro and uses patterns repeating motifs in the background. His submission was drawn using a mirro and the background repeats a jug shape.
• Paul Lee (Instagram) - He is a visual effects animator who lives in Tunbridge Wells. He graduated with honours from Birmingham where he studied fine art (1989-91), specialising in painting, at between the years 1989-1991. Since 1994, he has worked as a character and VFX animator in the feature film industry. He returned to oil painting in 2022 and his instagram account clearly demonstrates that he is very capable of capturing both a likeness and expressions and loves to use colour - which he does very well. He has also exhibited at the annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries (NEAC 2023, Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2024)
• Lloyd Lewis (Facebook | Instagram) - a martial arts teacher and artist from Haverfordwest in West Wales now based in Bristol. He has applied for every single one of the first 10 series and has finally achieved his ambition of being selected to be in a heat. He has exhibited at the RWA, SWAC and BSA and has been a wildcard in LAOTY.  His self-portrait was painted in acrylic and took him a 100 hours. I like the portraits and self portraits on his website much more than the one submitted to the competition. 
• Emilio Bartolome Martin - a chef who wants to become a full time artist based in South London. He studied for an MA in Fine Art at the City and Guilds of London Art School, 2015-2019 and also at the Barcelona Academy of Fine Art, 2023. He is a figurative painter and was selected for the Royal Society of British Artists, Rising Stars Exhibition in 2023 and 2024.  He also won the De Laszlo Foundation Young Artist award at the Green & Stone Gallery Summer Exhibition 2024 with the self portrait he submitted for selection for PAOTY.  (He needs to increase the font size on his website to make it much easier to read!)
• Zully Mejea (Facebook | Instagram) - Originally from Peru. At the time of the heat, she worked as a gallery assistant and also as an artist. She has a BFA from the University of Nevada and her MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London. She creates artworks that engage with the themes of immigration, womanhood and being a person of colour.  Her self portrait originall formed part of her Goldsmiths MFA Degree Show exhibition.
• Matthew Watts (Instagram) - He's a full time artist who lives and works in Bath. His art is primarily portraits and figurative pictures and he paints in oil on wood. He was educated at the West Surrey College of Art & Design. I notice that his portraits on his website rarely look at the artist. His choice of subject matter for this heat was based on a photo he took with a very string tonal shift due to a marked shadow across his face.

[NOTE: The production team have a serious issue with the names of the artists on the captions  not matching up with the names on the press release. I assume it might be something to do with generating captions]

The Self Portrait Submissions

How to lose your website's domain name

There's a very easy way to lose your Website's presence on the internet AND all its followers.

Just FORGET TO RENEW YOUR DOMAIN NAME

Your website still exists - but nobody can see it. That's all. It's really very, very simple.

I've lost count of the number of artists and art societies / groups / organisations who have fallen foul of thinking somebody else would remember to remind them that the licence for the domain name needs renewal.

This morning I came across another to add to the list.

Things you must remember

1. You do NOT own your domain name
2. When you pay for a domain name, you license it for a specific period of time
3. If you do NOT renew the licence in time you risk losing your website's presence on the internet i.e. your website ceases to exist
4. If you are unable to re-register the domain name, all the effort you have made to get the domain name recognised is wasted

More VERY IMPORTANT TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS TIP at the end - and the last two are critical!

Why are domain names important

Domain names provide a unique way of referencing a single unique site on the internet.

Hence they are very precious. They are that important. 

Quite often people buy their domain names before they've even worked out how they are going to build their website.

Speaking personally, I own far more domain names than I do websites. That's because I've got a bunch of them which were bought for defensive reasons i.e. I didn't want anybody else having the name.

How domain names work

Portrait Artist of the Year starts tomorrow - and the Series 11 sitters are...

Tomorrow is the first episode of the eleventh series of Portrait Artist of the Year on Sky. I shall, of course be reviewing each episode as I have been doing for the past few years - since Series 4.

We've yet to find out who the artists are - although some are making themselves known on social media. It's allowed now - just so long as they nothing about the outcome of their heat!

PAOTY 2024: The Format

Artists enter with a self-portrait created within the last 5 years. They are selected on merit by our panel of expert judges. At the heats they are given four hours to paint a surprise celebrity sitter. The heat winners get to compete at the Semi-Final. Three of the Semi-Finalists go through to the Final but just one is the selected as the overall winner. PAOTY Website

I'm guessing the format will be the same as always - with:

• 72 artists were selected to participate in Series 11 of Portrait Artist of the Year (according to the rejection letter)
• all episodes were filmed at the Battersea Arts Centre
• there are eight heats followed by a semi-final and a final 
• each heat has three sitters
• each heat has three artists 
• each artist has four hours to draw or paint a portrait of each sitter.
• the three Judges (from the beginning) are Kate Bryan, Kathleen Soriano and Tai-Shan Schierenberg judge the competition, by assessing the artists’ progress and choosing who will advance to the semi-final and the final before selecting the overall winner who will the £10,000 Commission (see below for who they are painting this year)

Setting Up at Battersea for the Heats - in April 2024

Joan Bakewell dropped out of the programme after Series 9 - and had her portrait painted in Series 10. She's wasn't replaced and since there has been no hints or marketing I'm assuming the series will continue with Stephen Mangan as the presenter.  

I personally think this is a pity as Joan was one of the best bits of the programme - especially in relation to highlighting when she thought the Judges were being silly. 

PAOTY 2024: The Sitters

The sitters for Episode 1 are Hannah Waddingham, Richard Madeley, and Saskia Reeves.

Overall, the sitters for the series as a whole are, as always, a range of some well known and rather less well known people who have some sort of public profile.