A Critique of the PAOTY Series 2024

The level of concern expressed  this year about the outcome of Portrait Artist of the Year prompts thoughts about 

• how much this relates to the artists - and 
• how much to the programme format; the objective of the programme; guidelines and criteria for assessment and the actual judging.

As a result, I've decided to do an extra 'final' post this year - about the way in which Portrait Artist of the Year works and to highlight some serious concerns.

The Final: final portraits

The programme formula - and Judges - have now remained the same for over 10 years. In my opinion it's no longer "up to snuff"in terms of:

• PAOTY Formula and format: about the participants, the design and format of the competition
• Objectives, Criteria and Judging: 
• the clarity of the judging criteria - and its communication to contestants
• the rigour expected of the judging
• the relevant expertise of the judges - in comparison to other shows
• Conduct of the Competition & Duty of Care / Wellbeing - expectations about the conduct of such competitions and regulatory compliance
• OFCOM and informed consent
• Guidelines and Policies about Duty of Care to support Participants
• Risk management and mitigation measures

So let's get down to business.... This has been a marathon and this post is a long one - for which I do not apologise - but you might want to go and make yourself a cup of tea first!

(PS I could probably write the short version in a couple of days - because, as they say, the short version takes longer! I might come back and provide a synopsis up front)

PAOTY Formula and Format

Is it really a show about an art competition? Or is it an entertainment programme?

It certainly has heats, heat winners and a final and a winner - but does it work the way other such programmes work on television

The participants

One of the reasons people got very agitated by the result of PAOTY 11 was that a very established professional artist who has exhibited internationally and been selected five times for the BP Portrait Award and was producing good portraits which had been praised by the Judges was deemed to not be as good as a young artist who only took up portrait painting very recently.

It was felt to be grossly unfair as it felt like the decision was a whim (of which more later - under Criteria and Judging)

If there is anything more guaranteed to deter professional portrait artists from taking part then that is it. 

I've noticed how the calibre of participant has deteriorated over the course of the last 11 years.  Indeed in some years, it's been very apparent that the competition while not lacking entries has lacked enough people of the right calibre. Could the number of entries be influenced by what happens in the show and how it is judged? I think that's very likely.

• Back at the beginning it attracted members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) - but now we only get amateurs who have been selected from the open entry for the RP Annual Exhibition. I can't remember the last time
• For years I've been highlighting that those who were after fame and a boost for their CV who said they were "professional artists" were nothing of the sort. (Not that I say so explicitly but the clues are there)
• Interestingly during that time it has ignored very competent portrait painters in heats who have subsequently become members of the RP

One of the aspects which distinguishes PAOTY from other shows is that others specifically stipulate that if you are a professional you cannot take part. In other words, if you make serious money from the activity covered by the programme, then you cannot take part.

Some (eg Masterchef) split their competition in two and have contests for the professionals from contests for the amateurs. For the professionals, they change the Judges AND the stipulate the minimum requirements to participate in the professional contest

I have worked for at least two years as a chef in a professional kitchen and/or have the following minimum qualifications: nvq level 3 706/1 and 706/2 or equivalent (in northern ireland you must have ntcb certificate in professional cookery) (Masterchef: The Professionals)

PS Grace Dent has been asked to replace GW for the upcoming Celebrity Masterchef!!

QUESTION: Is it fair to have one competition which mixes amateurs, semi-professionals and professionals? Others appear to think not.

Competition Design

It's not uncommon for such programmes - a competition about a creative process - to focus on a challenge within a time limit.  Many have very similar components e.g. the day and the filming goes on for an awful lot longer than it appears to on television - which, of itself, makes it a stressful day for participants

Here's some of my concerns:

Other programmes are based in reality and aim to be entertaining. However, the participants often compete in the context of a variety of challenges and often face more than one in each heat e.g.

• The much beloved "The Great Pottery Throwdown" (Ch4) runs with a one team of participants for the whole show - which runs as a knockout. It has a couple of challenges in each heat. The long challenge - over two days - is something known about in advance and participants come prepared. The second challenge is short and very technical and the standards are absolutely uncompromising (rubbish pots get thrown in a bucket!).
• Masterchef (BBC1) is similar to PAOTY insofar as it has different people in every heat and whittles a large number down to a final three before selecting a winner. However it too typically has more than one challenge, with "no hopers" going early and those showing promise allowed to continue and cook again. Time allowed for the cookery is also strictly time limited - but bears a very strong relationship to the time available in a busy kitchen. i.e. it is rooted in reality. Importantly the process of the show creates finalists and winners who often go on to become professional chefs

By way of contrast, PAOTY is VERY basic:

• the challenge each week is absolutely identical i.e. create a portrait in four hours
• all that changes are the people being painted - so that each week nine artists are split into threes to paint one person in one segment of the set-up
• there is no minor challenge - however PAOTY does start with a self portrait (they just never ever explain how important this is - or isn't)
• there are no tiered challenges
• the entire programme is compressed into c.45-50 minutes - which contains a fair amount of "the same thing each week)
• the only flexibility for participants is they can skip lunch and paint through - using photos only (which in part explains why some portraits are more developed than others) but this is never filmed or even acknowledged.

What is unreal and unacknowledged (i.e. what viewers do not see) is

• the extent to which cameras, judges and presenters generally interrupt and get in the way of the view of participants - thus shortening the four hours even further for the artist (it's the reason many have given up on trying to paint from life and just paint from a photograph)

My photograph of the filming of one episode in 2018
(the sitter is one the dais on the left behind the photographer

• how far the artists are placed away from the sitter than they would be - much much further than you ever would be in real life. 

compare, for example, the distance between Brogan and Lorraine with the 
distances in the studio

So basically the set-up is extremely artificial and unreal - with a very short timescale which bears no relationship to proper portraiture

The most you can expect - in that timescale and those circumstances - is a decent portrait study - which is what many of the more experienced portrait artists opt to do.

The problem with this set-up is 

• four hours is very short for a portrait. Very few professional portrait painters would seriously consider creating a portrait in four hours.
• It's not even four hours once you have discounted for all the interruptions. Food can keep cooking while you talk to a judge or presenter - but that's not the way it works with portraiture!

Objectives, Criteria and Judging

Objective of the Show

What is the objective of the show, who sets it and where is this set out? To me it's unclear. This is how it is described.

This is a televised competition. Artists enter with a self-portrait created within the last 5 years. They are selected on merit by our panel of expert judges. PAOTY Terms and Conditions Series 12

So it is NOT:

• an art competition
• a portrait competition

It's just a competition on television which happens to be about art and artists. The problem arises when you try to find the objectives and criteria written down - anywhere. This is as much as I could find.

The work may be abstract or expressive as long as it is recognisably a representation of a Self Portrait that has been produced within the last five years. PAOTY Terms and Conditions Series 12

It appears that the decision about how ithe programme works in terms of outcomes has been handed over to the Judges by the production team. Judges spout forth annually and variously about "what they're looking for" this year....

That's actually not good enough and I believe breaches good practice and regulatory guidelines.

Criteria

Here's an example of how criteria should be devised (my bold)

Clear demonstrable criteria should be agreed and issued to the panel well in advice of judging. Contestants should know of all key parts of the criteria on which they are to be judged. Ultimately in most cases judgments will be subjective but they will need to be well founded and stand up to the criteria and scrutiny. The panel should be briefed as to the importance of this and on any agreed procedure.

BBC Editorial Guidelines - Guidance: Talent Searches and Contestants

Can I suggest you try looking for the criteria for Portrait Artist of the Year written down anywhere. I tried and I can't find any.

Which means participants do not know what is expected of them and how they will be judged.

This is NOT a fair competition so long as the criteria for judging remains unexplained. 

Here's one independent viewer comment arising from the result on Series 11 

I watched the commission last night and have decided my issues with all this is not the winner but the programme format, and I stick with my comment “why bother with the final if you’re going to ignore the paintings?” Especially when it’s so hyped up? Also, whatever were they looking for in that setup? Or any of the set ups really - no dynamism in the poses, random objects plonked down on a side table, awful jarring backgrounds… and an extra for the final: Two heads quite far apart guaranteeing a large blank space top left. No wonder Jennifer decided to ignore all the traps and concentrate on the faces (and on the subject of Jennifer, isn’t painting on metal counted as innovative?).

I think there are two totally separate threads to the programme - (1) the search for the prize commission which is glimpsed in the self portraits (engagement, pose, style, spark) almost all of which took days if not weeks to paint, and confirmed by the commissions of the finalists which give a realistic idea of what to expect for the prize painting, and (2) the heats which have little to do with the final painting but are entertainment along the way. It’s a bit like auditioning a marathon runner by making them run 100 metres. Different skills and discipline and not all artists maintain quality across both. It’s not easy to end up with the right finalists and winner this way and I don’t think they always do (Lenny Henry, Nicola Benedetti come to mind). Hil Beavan 

The Judges

The Judges with presenter Stephen Mangan

So what do we hear from the Judges about what they want?

In the past, there were many episodes in the earlier series where the Judges derided anything which looked like it was produced by somebody who had been taught to paint people in a traditional manner. This in their opinion was no longer 'de rigeur'. In fact, quite the contrary. "Florence" was very much a dirty word on set.

Apparently PAOTY is about

• finding the next portrait artist who will show them something new
• launching a young portrait artist with a new style
• exciting mark-making
• a new language for portraiture

Now again they comment about whether or not an artist achieves a likeness.  I think there must have been a point where somebody reminded them that people pay good money for artists who can achieve a good likeness in a painting!

To be honest, I find the Judges to be totally pretentious. It's as if one artist - who sometimes paints portraits and two curators are the only people who can determine what is new and good in portraiture. WRONG! 

The main problem is that people actively involved in producing commissions - and progressing portraiture are NOT part of the panel of Judges.

(Incidentally, I find it quite ironic that Tai - who used to have a very innovative and unique style involving schmooshing lots of juicy thick oil paint around - now paints in a much more conventional way. I rather suspect it pays better.)

I found this comment - left on my FB Page - to be very salient and incisive

I have just finished watching Masterchef The Professionals and thoroughly enjoyed it. Two of the judges are top chefs and one is a grocer (but we won't talk about him!). The two chefs demonstrate dishes and techniques. The chefs get through to the next round on what they produce - the look and taste. They don't get through because of what they might do in the future. If the food doesn't look or taste good they don't get through. If they experiment and it doesn't work, they are told. Guest judges (food critics) also give their opinions. They spend time with Michelin starred chefs who put them through their paces. Yes they are usually in their 20s, but some are more experienced and in more senior roles. In the kitchen they are all equal. The best chef wins.
PAOTY is trying to do two things...look for emerging artists with potential while also showcase tried and tested artists. There is only one artist judge.
I don't think it's working. Lorraine Mills

and another comment about how marketing gets confused with Judging to make viewers very annoyed

I think a lot of the public outcry is because the 3 paintings in the final were so clearly in different leagues and we’d all been told we were watching a competition to be won on that particular work. “Who will rise to the occasion and take home the title?” they posted. Well Jennifer rose but didn’t. Yes it’s a TV programme but as always producers need to manage viewers’ expectations and I think they are confused about their own format. In conclusion then I’d revisit the format and possibly the judges (though preserve us from some on other art programmes!) and be a little clearer on what the criteria is - let us in to the process rather than show us the back of canvases as you discuss and we might come along with you.

I particularly liked the last comment. 

BIG TIP: The judging MUST be:

• a lot more transparent AND
• articulated much better 
• against a set of agreed criteria - shared with the participants in advance - for how the competition will be judged.

Personally speaking - I'd change ALL the Judges and get three practising portrait painters who earn their living by commissions to judge the competition. (A bit like the top chefs in Masterchef - people who live and breathe quality and innovation) Preferably three who can talk simply and clearly - without using waffle and "art speak". 

Also no Judge should ever have a financial interest in the outcome of the competition.  That's an absolute "no no". I can be more explicit if asked - I've certainly seen evidence which was very suggestive of this in the past, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

Conduct of the Competition & Duty of Care / Wellbeing

OFCOM and Informed Consent

Policies relating to Duty of Care and Wellbeing have become very much more evident in recent times amongst various television production companies following the very unfortunate outcomes arising from the experiences of some people on some reality based competitive shows.

This is the current (I think) OFCOM Statement: Protecting participants in TV and radio programmes which starts as follows

In recent years, Ofcom has seen a steady rise in complaints about the mental health and wellbeing of programme participants, reflecting society’s growing openness and concern about these issues. In 2019, we launched a review of our protections for programme participants with the following objectives:

• to make sure the welfare of people who take part in television and radio programmes is protected; and
• to make sure audiences are protected from uncontextualised offence that can arise from seeing or hearing vulnerable participants in programmes whose welfare they think might not have been protected

In other words it matters not just that participants have been protected - but that this is evident to viewers as well.

There is also a section on dealing fairly with contributors and obtaining informed consent in the OFCOM Code about Broadcast Standards (see Guidance notes: Section seven – Fairness (PDF, 261.7 KB March 2021).

This deals with ways of being open and fair with participants in a programme (eg in relation to what they will be judged on and how judging works)This also stipulates guidance on risk assessment and best practice - and you can see below some of the ways other broadcasters have put this into practice - RECORDED IN WRITTEN DOCUMENTS.

Guidelines and Policies about Duty of Care to support Participants

All those who I've spoken to who have taken part in the Artist of the Year productions typically talk about receiving a lot of very helpful support from the team.  You can also read the same in various blog posts and social media posts which participants have written about the way the team on the day handled the process. They are generally very positive.

Those who have taken part have also spoken about the difficulties experienced by some participants which were somewhat out of the ordinary e.g.      

• from psychological meltdowns on set due to stress to 
• actual physiological meltdowns due to the experience of painting landscapes in extreme heat.

HOWEVER I find it very odd that I can find no formal Duty of Care / Wellbeing policy online - by Sky Arts or Storyvault Films which appears to relate to addressing the very necessary attention which MUST be paid to the protecting the wellbeing of participants in the "Artist of the Year" programmes. I've also asked participants and they cannot recall one either. 

Is it possible that the context for programming has changed - and yet the necessary provisions for modern programming have NOT been taken on board and updated as yet? 

In other words, have PAOTY programmes rolled forward year after year unchanged? No updating for changes in OFCOM Policy for example?

There's a NEW paragraph (i.e. it is in a different typeface/font size) added in to the Terms and Conditions for the next series

We want everybody involved in the casting and selection process and production of the Programme in whatever capacity to be treated with dignity and respect and any form of unacceptable behaviour (such as, but not limited to, harassment or bullying) will not be tolerated. (Para 41 of Terms and Conditions for PAOTY Series 12)

But there's not a lot else - and the above is NOT adequate as either a policy or informing all participants of what should happen because it defines nothing and says nothing about how it will work and be judged.

Elsewhere - with other channels and programme makers - we can see a VERY different approach. For example 

• the BBC has very clear Editorial Guidelines in relation to Guidance: Talent Searches and Contestants. This includes very specific guidelines as to:
• how to find participants
• how participants must be treated
• how participants should be judged
• how candidates for a show should be screened 
• Channel 4 has an explicit Duty of Care Policy within its Regulatory Guidelines

Please remember that duty of care considerations should evolve with the production and be continuously reassessed as production continues and changes.

For example, this is how these matters are dealt with by the BBC

• Screening of Contestants and Duty of Care
• - Duty of Care
• - Use of Psychologists
• - Use of Social Media
• - Background Checks
• Aftercare

and this is an extract from a Channel 4 video about Duty of Care

Channel 4: E-module: Duty of care
What is your duty of care as a content maker?

Having said this it's clear from a recent issue relating to Masterchef, that matters can always be improved....

Nothing much about wellbeing in guidance to PAOTY Participants

I've been looking for the relevant policy relating to Wellbeing which would guide:

• how a programme is structured
• what participants are told in advance of the programme (eg you'll be painting two people in the final)
• how the production team ensures that the scope for undue stress is minimised (eg creating a winner who has never done a commission and is unfamiliar with the process of doing a commission)
• how the production team takes into account KNOWN aspects of the participant's life which may impact on their ability to cope with stress.

I've found nothing.

Risk Management and Mitigation Measures

Risk Management has been a normal corporate process for years. I've been retired for nearly 20 years and was party to writing Risk Management Policies and Plans well before I retired.

I think Sky Arts and Storyvault Films need to consider and review very seriously and thoroughly their approach to risk management - given they are dealing with people's lives. Specifically:

• their structured risk management process with respect to identifying risks and choosing a winner (i.e. Could this go "wrong" and how profound might the outcome be if it does?)
• the appropriate mitigation measures that they did or did not employ in relation to a process which allowed the Judges (who are not involved in or responsible for risk management) to choose a VERY inexperienced artist to 
• win a Final and 
• have to complete a commission in a tight timescale when he had no prior knowledge of how to go about doing this.

(Note this is emphatically NOT a criticism of Brogan's style of painting, the fact he won or the commission he produced; it's about how he should have been protected and supported)

I found parts of the Commission programme a very uncomfortable watch - and I know I am far from alone in feeling like this. Given I knew about Brogan Bertie's inexperience in portraiture generally and commissions in particular, it was distressing to watch him begin to unravel as he realised what he didn't know and that he needed to work out what to do - and would he do it in time.

The OFCOM Code of practice relates to viewers as well as participants. None of us should have felt uncomfortable.

What was less than explicit in the programme was the wellbeing policies and processes supporting the winner. They may have existed. I didn't see anything effective.

I just happen to think that 

• those of us who found it uncomfortable - should NOT   have experienced that and 
• the artist should not have been placed in that position.

Especially given there was bound to be comment about the trans aspect.