Every now and again I have a bit of a rant about one of my pet topics - media creep. This is one of them.
An art society is set up to serve a very particular group of artists - including specific media. Media Creep sets in as it the media eligible for use in a society exhibitions starts to become more broad and extended so that definitions of media become "more inclusive".
I've often thought it's another way of avoiding setting up a society to tackle their particular preferred media.
Here's an example of my previous words on this topic - Acrylic Painting, Art Societies and Education (2022). Plus an extract which just about sums it up
In the UK we have acrylic crossing the oil and watercolour divide - and sometimes forgetting that
- those on the water side should NOT look like oils and
- those on the oil side should NOT look like watercolours.
Maybe it's a question of acrylic painters needing to achieve a much higher profile - in terms of an art society with a very clear focus and its own membership and exhibitions?
As I stated yesterday about the current RI Annual Exhibition
Virtually everybody in this exhibition is using either watercolour or (normal or acrylic) inks.There are a number of artworks in the exhibition whose media description is as follows
However 53 artworks are in acrylic. That's 11.5% of the artworks.
First up - I'm very much a "do what it says on the tin" sort of person. So please read this section with this in mind.
My one big gripe about media is that I think every artwork I see in the RI exhibition should demonstrate evidence of WATER. After all, this is a conglomeration of artists who create artwork in WATER COLOURS. The word water is important.
Fluid acrylics and heavy body acrylic on wood panelThat to me is a very very long way from being a water colour painting.
A review of other FBA Art Societies
Let's look at some comparisons re FBA Societies - and how they have chosen to address media creep.
The Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)
In the past, a few too many artworks in acrylic hung in the annual ROI exhibition - in my opinion.
Or rather they could have done until the ROI finally outlawed acrylic (after I had a go at the ROI about its name and the media used in its exhibition - and kept repeating it in every review).
I'm not quite sure when the ROI started to let people submit work in acrylics but I do wish they'd:I think it's misleading to do otherwise... It needs to be one or the other. I was pleased to see the extremely high percentage of the exhibited work is in oils. Hopefully this is an aspect of the society that can be addressed over time. Review - Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2017
- either change their name
- or stick rigidly to this being an exhibition of oil paintings.
The acrylic painters then started using oils. Which is interesting.
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