Beyond The Prize

Beyond The Prize is a NEW and different sort of contemporary figurative art exhibition. It's all about 160 new artwork produced by over one hundred recent award-winning artists artists - and it opens at the Mall Galleries on Wednesday 16th April.

Bringing together the best emerging and established artists from art societies across the UK, the exhibition celebrates the impact of prizes and awards on their work, and their work on the world.

• The aim of the exhibition is to provide them with a showcase for their new works and to highlight figurative art as a thriving, contemporary art form. 
• The artists and artwork have been guest curated by Tabish Khan - an art critic who specialises in London's art scene. He is the visual arts editor for Londonist, a trustee of ArtCan, (a non-profit arts organisation that supports artists through profile raising activities and exhibitions), Discerning Eye, and is a member of The Critics’ Circle.

The exhibition is presented by the Federation of British Artists, a collective of leading art societies based at Mall Galleries. It is through the exhibitions and initiatives of the Federation - led by artists, for all - that more than £100,000 worth of prizes and awards, bursaries, residencies and scholarships are awarded to artists annually. Featured in this exhibition are many of these winners, plus award-winning artists from the Royal West of England Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, and Wales Contemporary.

The artwork is already available to see - and buy - online. 

The exhibition is accompanied by an online series, featuring interviews with many of the exhibitors about their journey to the prize and beyond.  This includes their responses to the question:

"What impact do you think art has on the world, now, and in the future?"

There are also a number of events - listed after the details of the exhibition below.

The Artists in the Exhibition

The exhibition includes both emerging and established artists. Exhibitors are 

• award-winning artists from the annual open exhibitions of the art societies within the Federation of British Artists in 2023 and 2024, 
• plus winners of the gallery’s bursaries, residencies and scholarships over the same period.
• plus award-winning artists from the Royal West of England Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, and Wales Contemporary.

If this exhibition continues beyond this year, it provides an enormous incentive for:

• artists to submit great artwork to FBA Exhibitions with a view to winning a prize
• a high standard of judging in relation to who wins prizes.

You can see the names of the artists in the online exhibition

However, very oddly, none of the listings provide any reference to the prize they won. Which I thought was the whole point of the show - to demonstrate that these are prizewinners!

I did ask the Mall Galleries for a copy of the list of the artists - but got an email back from the consultant who is doing their publicity saying she doesn't monitor her email account!!!

I think there are a few aspects which could be improved if this exhibition were to run again!

Artworks in the Exhibition  

There are 160 new artworks in the exhibition. 

Media

• 75 - oil or acrylic
• 26 - waterbased media (watercolour, gouache, pen and ink)
• 25 - mixed media
• 24 - dry media (pastel, charcoal, graphite)
• 6 - scultures
• 4 - prints

Subject matter

I'll be interested to see how these fare in the selling stakes as I know which category tends to generate the most sales - and it isn't Portrait and Figures.

• 61 - Portrait and Figure 
• 39 - Landscape and Cityscape
• 23 - Still life and Interiors
• 16 - Wildlife and Animals
• 11 - "Other" - including "Freemotion embroidery on painted silk"
• 1 - Abstract

Pricing

It's worth commenting on the pricing in advance. There are four approaches to pricing by different groups of artists who I would characterise as follows

• artists who are not willing to compromise their prices and choose to make them not for sale. The exhibition represents a marketing opportunity for commissions.
• artists who have stuck to their normal price range for size and media
• artists have have been optimistic as to who this exhibition might be marketed to, one way and another - who might have got rather ambitious / overly optimistic in their pricing and will very probably be disappointed
• artists who have read my blog posts on pricing for exhibitions at the Mall Galleries.

How to see the Beyond the Prize Exhibition

• Dates: 16th - 26th April 2025
• Venue: Mall Galleries
• Hours: 11am to 6pm, 1pm on final day
• Admission: Admission £6, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available. No booking required.
• Sponsor: The Federation of British Artists

Events at the Exhibition

Art After Hours: Life Drawing Session

• Wednesday 16 April, 6pm to 8:30pm

Artist Talk | Café de Paris

• Thursday 17 April, 12 noon
• An artist talk by Peter Graham

In-Person Session: “Surviving and Thriving as an Artist”

• Thursday 17 April, 6:30pm
• With artist-curator, author, and Faculty Expert of the Professional Artist Association, Rosalind Davis

Virtual Session: Impression | How to Make the Right Impression as an Artist

• Tuesday 22 April, 12 noon (GMT)
• With the Founder & Director of Education of the Professional Artist Association, Miguel L. Mayher

LIVE PODCAST | The Good The Bad And The Arty

• Thursday 24 April, 6pm to 8:30pm
• In this live podcast episode at Mall Galleries, art critic Tabish Khan and artist and broadcaster Anna Gammans speak with award-winning artist Kelvin Okafor