Call for Entries: Society of Women Artists 164th Annual Exhibition (2025)

This is about the call for entries for the Annual Open Exhibition 2025 of the Society of Women Artists (SWA).  

The SWA seeks works of the highest standard within its specific field. The SWA continues to promote female artists and prides itself on the very diverse nature of the work shown during our Annual Open Exhibition from both our non-members and our members.

Below you can find a summary of how to enter and relevant terms and conditions - although you do need to read the complete set of details.

All the images below are from the Annual Exhibition in 2024.

SWA Annual Exhibition: Call for Entries

The Society of Women Artists exhibits at the Mall Galleries on an annual basis (although not a member of the Federation of the British Artists).  This year the exhibition will be held there between 24th June to 28th June 2025 (5 days ONLY).

The DEADLINE for entries is 8th March 2025. If you enter, you can find out whether you have been successful if you visit the SWA website on or after the 29th March 2025.

In this post you can find:

• details of the exhibition
• who is eligible to enter
• what types of artwork are eligible
• how to enter 

but, first, why enter this exhibition?

Why enter the SWA Annual Exhibition?

East Gallery, SWA Annual Exhibition 2024

The Society of Women Artists have been on an important journey of improvement in recent years. It's one which can provide lessons for other art societies - in a variety of ways.

In general the artwork has improved over time and the number of younger artists now exhibiting with the Society has improved.

There's also a keen sense of the exhibition being a place where women artists can exhibit work on themes with meaning to women - which might get overlooked by panels where men make up the majority of the members.

Review: ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2023

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2023 opened to the public last Friday - when I visited. This is a review of what I found - but first some facts about this very unusual exhibition and how it works - and who are the six selectors who have created six very different exhibits in 2023

(This post has been updated since it was first published with respect to the number of entries, selected works and artists - see below)

The end of the West Gallery featured a lot of sculpture and 3D works.
I couldn't quite work out whether these all related to just one selector
as the names of the artists suggested not.....

At a time when sponsorship is being withdrawn and art competitions are dying on their feet, ING are to be very much applauded for their continued sponsorship of this open art competition / exhibition.

• ING has been supporting this exhibition every year since 1999!
• This makes it one of the longest corporate art sponsorships in the UK

Since it began in 1999, 11,000 works by 4,000 artists have been exhibited, £290,000 has been awarded in prize money, and over £1 million worth of art has been sold on behalf of the artists

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition

The Discerning Eye is a visual arts focused educational charity. Its principal activity is to hold a rather unique annual exhibition sponsored by the bank ING - and hence it is known as the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition.

Ian Watkin's Exhibit

What's special about this exhibition is that it is:

• an annual show of small-scale works - which are all for sale
• chosen by two artists, two art collectors and two critics / people who have art-related occupations
  
• as a result, there are six different exhibits - one for each of the selectors
• while 25% of each exhibits MUST come from the open entry, the selectors are also able to invite artists they like to exhibit their work
• it's a good opportunity for 
• emerging artists to get their work seen, appreciated and exhibited - albeit in a small way!
• artists whose work may not always please ALL the selectors!

Within each selection works from, as yet lesser known artists, hang alongside pieces by those who are more established or internationally recognised.

The exhibition is 

• open daily 10am - 5pm in all three galleries at the Mall Galleries in London
• it closes on Sunday 26th November at 1pm

You can also VIEW EACH EXHIBIT ONLINE

Plus I am going to be uploading my photographs of the exhibition to an album on my Making A Mark Facebook Page.

• 

  ING Discerning Eye 2023

  38 items
• 

  ING Discerning Eye 2023 (Part 2)

  37 items

I've included representative ones of each exhibit in this review.

Part of the Exhibit by Chris Levine in the North Gallery
- probably the most curated and gallery like of them all in terms of presentation

The 2023 Curators

Links embedded in the selectors name are to their ONLINE EXHIBIT.

(Quite why the URL for each exhibit bears absolutely no relationship to the selector's name is beyond me - but is the sort of thing I notice!)

Artists

• Chris Levine, a luminary in light art, 
• Julian Wild, an accomplished sculptor, 

Curator/ Critics

• Péjú Oshin, a distinguished curator, currently Associate Director at Gagosian
• Eliza Gluckman, Director of the Government Art Collection

Eliza Gluckman - part of her exhibition in the East Gallery

Art Collectors

• Ian "H" Watkins one of the singers in Steps who is passionate about painting
• Tony Adams - former Arsenal and England football captaiN.

The exhibit by Tony Adams - in the West Gallery

My review

My reviews tend to focus on a lot of practical aspects and things of interest to artists wanting to be selected for the exhibition, visitors to the exhibition and those whose wanting to buy. These are all summed up below in 

• what I liked
• what I disliked 

That's not to say I don't have an opinion on the art - but it is so diverse and eclectic it's difficult to have a coherent view about the artwork itself

Ruth Borchard Portrait Prize and Exhibition 2023

The Winner of the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Prize was announced last week - and the exhibition was opened.

This post is about:

• the winner of the £10000 Ruth Borchard Prize 2023
• the Exhibition - Online
• the Self Portraits - the good and less good aspects
• the lack of an Archive

Sadly, for those of use who used to visit the exhibition of diverse self-portraits by a varied collection of artists, theexhibition is only available ONLINE ONLY at present - until December 2023.

However there will be  a curated selection of distinguished and shortlisted artworks (that means NOT all the selected art) on display in an exhibition at The Atkinson Museum, Southport, from September - December 2023. The exhibition will coincide with the Liverpool Arts Biennial in 2023.

Ruth Borchard Prize 2023 (£10,000)

The winner is Colin Davidson 

Colin Davidson is a contemporary artist, living and working near Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since graduating in 1991 from the University of Ulster with a first-class honours degree, he has structured his practice in themes, and since 2010 his focus has been on painting grand scale portraits, which have won widespread recognition and many international awards. As well as numerous commissions, Davidson’s portrait sitters have included Brad Pitt, Ed Sheeran, Liam Neeson, Brian Friel, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Christy Moore, Dame Mary Peters, Gary Lightbody, Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard, Mark Knopfler and Seamus Heaney. His work is held in many public and corporate collections worldwide (from his website)

This was his winning artwork which he calls a 3D Painting. I guess, this is his original digital submission and it does suggest scale rather effectively - and is maybe a bit bigger than people imagined?

Self Portrait (2022) by Colin Davidson

Acrylic paint and oil paint on Polylactic acid

105 x 78 x 54 cm | 41 3/8 x 30 3/4 x 21 1/4 in

POA

As a painter, I am always looking for opportunities to use paint in new ways. To exploit the myriad different possibilities which oil paint, in particular, has to offer. Here is a recent self-portrait. I suppose it’s a big, 3-dimensional selfie. But it is, first and foremost, a framed, wall-hung painting. Using the medium of acrylic and oil paint itself to sculpt with.

The announcement was made via video and can be viewed on:

  

The work was selected from over 1800 entries by this years judges who included: 

• Gabriele Finaldi (Director of the National Gallery), 
• Melanie Gerlis (Financial Times Art Market Columnist), 
• Andrea Rose (former Director of the British Council), 
• Stephen Whittle (Principal Manager The Atkinson Museum), 
• Lucy Jones (2021 Prize Winner) and 
• David Borchard (grandson of Ruth Borchard).

(When they say "included" does that mean other people were involved too - and if so who are these Judges?)

 

The Ruth Borchard Exhibition - Online

The Self-Portrait Prize Online Exhibition presents a selection of noteworthy entries to the 2023 competition. It highlights the diversity of contemporary self-portraiture and the continuing importance of this uniquely personal subgenre of art. The Online Exhibition includes a cross-section of self-portraits from around the world, made by artists at all stages of their careers in a range of media

The Online Exhibition is available from 23 June to 20 December 2023

Given the Prize is run on a triennial basis, all the portraits have been made in the last three years.

What is excellent about the online exhibition is that:

Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023: Last Call for Entries

I missed the announcement of the Call for Entries for the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2023 - hence why this is a "Last Call for Entries" as the deadline for all entries is Midnight on the 31st March 2023!

From the artworks submitted the 2023 prize judges will select 

• a winner of the £10,000 Ruth Borchard Prize and 
• a number of distinguished entries will be acquired for the Next Generation Collection.

Before you start reading you might want to know that 

• the fee for an entry is £38 and 
• this competition attracts artists from across the spectrum including professional and prize-winning portrait artists.

If you're interested, you can see examples of the works selected to hang in the exhibition of the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2019 at The Kings Place - in an album on my Facebook Page.

one wall in the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2019 Exhibition
at The Kings Place, Kings Cross, London

Who can enter?

All ages and abilities can enter. Individuals under the age of 16 wishing to enter are required to have consent from a parent or legal guardian.

Artists of all backgrounds, established and emerging, are invited to enter. Even if this is your first ever self-portrait or artistic creation we welcome your contribution.

What can you enter?

You can use any size and medium. I've seen some huge works in past exhibitions!

However these are the details in the T&Cs

• The artwork must be a self-portrait. 
• All variations of work – figurative or abstract, alone or in a group, from life or from memory – will be accepted.
• The artwork must have been created in the year of or after 2000.
• There are no restrictions of size of work.
• Multi-part works, i.e. works in the form of a diptych or triptych etc., are eligible and will be regarded as one work.

We welcome a wide variety of media, including but not restricted to; painting, drawing, digital art, photography, sculpture, tapestry and ceramics. 

an exhibitor in the 2019 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize Exhibition
(happy to give credits if anybody recognises the work)

How to enter

All works must be submitted online via the Self Portrait Prize Zealous portal. Access to the portal can be found at: https://ruthborchard.org.uk/self-portrait-prize/

You can enter more than once - but every entry requires a separate submission.

To enter you MUST:

• upload a high quality image of your self portrait
• provide all the details about the artwork
• complete the application form and agreement to T&Cs. This needs to include as supporting information:
• Artistic Statement – maximum 200 words – this is a space for you to tell the judges anything you feel is relevant to the application and/or about you or your artwork.
• CV (optional) - Whether you are a full time professional artist or have a completely alternative career the option to upload a CV allows the judges to find out more about the individual behind the artwork
• gallery representation (optional - not considered as part of the judging process - which suggest the above two are!)
• personal details and contact information
• pay the fee for entry

This is £38.00 from a UK based bank account and £48.00 if payment is being made from overseas.2 Ruth Borchard Collection and Self-Portrait Prize are funded by a charitable foundation and the submission fee goes a small way to covering the cost of running the Prize.

View of the 2015 Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2015 Exhibition at Piano Nobile

If selected, how your work will be exhibited

From the submissions 250 artists will be invited to participate in an exclusive online selling exhibition. Shared and promoted via 

• an exclusive Ruth Borchard Collection virtual gallery and 
• Artsy online viewing room 

this gives artists the opportunity to have their work seen by international collectors.

If you win your artwork will hang in a curated selection of distinguished and shortlisted artworks to be exhibited at The Atkinson Museum, Southport, from September - December 2023. The exhibition will coincide with the Liverpool Arts Biennial.

The last exhibition in 2021 was at Coventry Cathedral.

So far as I'm aware there's no plans to bring any sort of physical exhibition to London.

The Judges

 The judges include 

• Gabriele Finaldi (Director of the National Gallery), 
• Melanie Gerlis (Financial Times Art Market Columnist), 
• Andrea Rose (former Director of the British Council), 
• Stephen Whittle (Principal Manager The Atkinson Museum), 
• Lucy Jones (2021 Prize Winner) and 
• David Borchard (grandson of Ruth Borchard)

These are the Judges from 2021 talking about the artwork entered into the exhibition. It gives you an insight into how Judges can look at artwork and what their expectations are - albeit this year those views might all be different because it's a different set of Judges.

Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize 2021 film from Ruth Borchard Collection on Vimeo.

Call for Entries: UKCPS Annual Open International Exhibition 2023

This year's Annual Open Exhibition held by the UK Coloured Pencil Society (UKCPS) will be held online opening on 1st August 2023.

Awards

There are a number of awards

• Best in Show: £500
• Second Best in Show : £250
• Best Pure Colour Pencil (no other media used) : £150
• Pat Heffer Award
• The Colour Pencil Shop Award
• People’s Choice: £100

Terms and Conditions of Entry

The call has gone out for submissions to the exhibition.

The deadline for entries is 15th June 2023.

Who can enter?

Any artist can enter this exhibition if 

• you are living
• aged over 18 years old
• you can be any age and live anywhere in the world. It's not limited to artists living in the UK. 

What can you enter?

You can enter up to five artworks. However, no more than two pictures per artist will be shown, irrespective of how many they enter

The artwork MUST be 

• original (concept, design and execution by the artist) 
• at least 50% colour pencil, 
• demonstrate compositional and drawing skills, 
• demonstrate the ability to use the medium of colour pencil. 
• Entries must not have been shown in any previous UKCPS exhibition.
• Each artwork must have a title

AND

• Each work submitted MUST comprise at least 50% dry colour pencil (i.e. wood-cased, and wax- or oil-based colour pencil, including watercolour pencil if used dry). This definition excludes pastel pencils. 
• The remaining 50% of the work may be in any other medium, including any water or solvent used.

Artwork is ineligible IF any one of the following apply:

• Any image produced by drawing over a digital reproduction. 
• Artwork executed in whole or part under instruction and/or in any teaching or workshop situation. 
• Any work copied from someone else’s photograph(s), even with their permission. 
• Use of an individual’s image without that individual’s permission, in accordance with UK privacy laws. 
• Any work shown in any previous UKCPS exhibition. 

By implication it can be an artwork which you have entered into another open exhibition and it was selected and exhibited. So, for example, this amazing work by Curtis Holder which I recently saw in the SGFA Exhibition at the Mall Galleries could be entered. It's also an example of a mixed media artwork.

copyright Curtis Holder 
Coloured Pencil over acrylic gouache

How to enter

You first need to read the detailed pdf about How to Enter - which is very clear and should answer all your queries.

After that, you can complete the online form (2023 Annual Exhibition) 

You will need images for each artwork entered. These must be

• JPG or PNG files only; 
• min. size 1MB, 
• max size 5MB.

Poorly presented images, especially those that are out of focus, badly lit or pixelated will affect your chances of success. Each entry will be judged on your submitted image(s) alone. It is therefore very important to represent your work as best you can

You can find advice and information for how to take a good photograph of your artwork on my Art Business Info. for Artists website - see How to photograph art - for Artists

Entry fees are as follows

• UKCPS Members: 1st entry free, additional entries £10 each 
• Non-Members: £20 per entry

All fees are non-refundable. Entries are not complete until payment has been received

Selection

The pictures to be exhibited are chosen by an independent selection panel, who will be asked to select works to produce a varied exhibition showing the full range of capabilities of the colour pencil medium. All submitted images will be presented to the selection panel anonymously. No personal data, including name, will be given during the selection. 

Images from ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2022 plus Prizes

I viewed the six different displays of small artworks selected by six different selectors for the ING Discerning Eye 2022 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries yesterday. 

My general impression was that much of the content was better than in previous years - while some still had me wondering about "what is taste?" in art and even "what is art?"!

The Different Displays

I've done two things after getting home

• uploaded albums of my photos of the various displays to my Making A Mark Facebook Page. 
• The artwork which caught my eye and/or I liked the best gets singled out - and the artwork and artist named.

The link in the name is to my Facebook albums. 

The second link to the number of artworks is to the website gallery version on the ING Discerning Eye website. You can then compare the digital image version with what it looks like on the wall.

• East Gallery: Kate Enters ArtCan Director - Selected Artwork - 93 artworks - this was the display that most impressed me, in terms of amount of artwork I liked.
• North Gallery: Aindrea Emelife, Curator - 103 artworks - included some interesting works and a blast from my past
• West Gallery 
• Ansel Krut, Artist - 68 artworks - the smallest exhibition
• Gurinder Chadha, Film director - 108 artworks - very much dominated by images of people
• Alison Bevan, RWA Director - 102 artworks I also liked a lot in this exhibit
• David Ferry, Artist and RE President - 89 artworks - included as one might expect quite a few original prints

One of the things you may find interesting as you look at the artwork is to see which artworks have sold - bearing in mind that the exhibition had been open for a week - since 11 November - when I saw it on 18 November. Keen collectors tend to buy online or early on in an exhibition.

I saw quite a few sales. I also saw quite a really silly prices. In future, I think some artists need to remember that we are now in a recession and won't be coming out of it for quite a long time.

Never ever forget 'Affordable Art' sells well! Small works are a great opportunity to create affordable art.

Prizes and Awards

Interestingly on the IMG Discerning Eye website the awards are not matched up with images of the awards. However if you click the link that takes you to the dedicated page for that artwork. 

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2022

This is about the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition which can be seen both online and at the Mall Galleries this week - until 20th November.

The exhibition includes more than 500 small artworks by 359 artists

To be honest I thought the exhibition was next week and I'd not seen any reminders on my Facebook feed. 

More importantly, having just realised(!), I haven't yet seen it - and could go today but my osteoarthritis especially hates lots of heavy rain (today) which is why I'm sat writing about it before I've actually seen it!

You can find details of how to visit and the DAILY demonstrations at the end of this post.

I'm going to start by taking a quick look at the two organisations involved in this exhibition - because without both of them this open art competition and exhibition of small works would not exist. I've usually focused on the exhibition - but the very fact that the exhibition continues to exist when so many have fallen by the wayside I decided a different approach is relevant this year.

ING Sponsorship of Art

I'd like to start by applauding ING for their continued sponsorship of this open art competition / exhibition. 

• ING has been supporting this exhibition every year since 1999! 
• This makes it one of the longest corporate art sponsorships in the UK

At a time when art competitions are fast disappearing off the scene (Sunday Times Watercolour / Lynn Painter-Stainers / BP Portrait Award) it's really great to see a commitment to continued sponsorship.

In part I think it comes because the ING have their own art collection in their UK Offices at 60 London Wall in the City of London, which I've been privileged to see - see my 2011 post about The ING Art Collection.  I'm not surprised that back in 2016 ING’s art collection wins Corporate Art Awards. As a Dutch Bank it has also sponsored the Rijksmuseum since 2005.

The ING Collection is a living, evolving collection that is constantly questioning its relationship to art and its boundaries. It is a modern collection that reflect ING’s international, contemporary and innovative character. It reflects the figurative tradition of ING in an experimental and new way.

For me, a commitment to art by a sponsor is a very good indication of whether or not the sponsorship is likely to be enduring. It also says something about the nature of the organisation.  

Art and culture have always been important to us and we believe in the power of art to inspire, make connections, and portray times we live in. Through our partnership, it’s our privilege to support emerging artists and make art accessible to collectors in the UK and beyond.

The Discerning Eye Collection

The Discerning Eye aims to encourage wider conversations around the understanding and appreciation of the visual arts.

The main focus of the organisation is the annual exhibition - but has also expanded into other activities. 

• the website now includes an archive of images of every artwork shown at every ING Discerning Eye exhibition.
• The Discerning Eye Collection has been developed using the annual Founder’s Purchase Prize and includes artworks by some of the UK's leading artists - many of home have featured as prizewinners in various exhibitions.
• they created the Drawing Eye Bursary
• exhibitions have also been held at the Temple Church
• an online exhibition was set up in response to the constraints caused during the pandemic

However during 2021, they have diversified into providing online webinars for artists - delivered via Instagram.

You can see the recording of the last LIVE TALK on How to promote your work as an artist on Instagram

The next LIVE TALK on Instagram is on Wednesday this week at 5pm 

Instagram LIVE TALK for artists: 'Working with a gallery' 🆕⁠
⁠
🗓 When? Wednesday, 16 November from 5pm UK.⁠
Tune in on the day or catch up after on our page.⁠
⁠
We are delighted to have @cynthia_corbett, Director of ⁠
@cynthiacorbettgallery and Elspeth Edmondson, Director of @thewhispergallery answering your questions

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (@ingdiscerningeye)

 

ING Discerning Eye Exhibition

The ING Discerning Eye annual exhibition is a show of small, domestic scale, works independently selected by six prominent figures from different areas of the art world: two artists, two collectors and two critics.

I wrote about the Call for Entries for this Exhibition back in July - see Call for Entries: ING Discerning Eye Annual Exhibition 2022

Last year I was none too impressed by the technological aspects of the exhibition - see Cons and Pros of ING Discerning Eye Exhibition's tech makeover - and I'll wait to I get to the exhibition to comment on any issues re accessing information about the artwork this year.

On to what the Exhibition involves....

Out of 7,300 entries from 2,900 artists, 420 works from 325 artists were selected from the open call for the ING Discerning Eye 2022 exhibition. That means 

• just under 6% of the open call artworks submitted made it through to the exhibition. 
• around about 11% of the open call artists who submitted had artwork selected - which is a very respectable percentage

There are 527 artworks by 359 artists in the complete exhibition - as some artists are INVITED by the selectors rather than selected from the open call.

• i.e. 107 artworks by 34 artists were invited NOT selected.

The Selectors are normally split into Collectors, Critics and Artists - but other than the latter I'm not entirely sure which is which.

• Alison Bevan, RWA Director
• Gurinder Chadha, Film director
• Aindrea Emelife, Curator
• Kate Enters, ArtCan Director
• David Ferry, Artist and RE President
• Ansel Krut, Artist

Each Selector mounts their own exhibition within the different galleries at the Mall Galleries and shows the work they want to. If you click the link to Selectors and then image of the selector on https://www.discerningeye.org/2022 then you can see the artwork they selected.e

Getting to the final selection was incredibly painful - it was so hard to choose between such a wealth of great art! In the end I chose work in the same way that I select artwork for my own home: does it light a personal spark, and would it reward spending time with? I also considered how each fitted with my invited artists, who are a small cross-section of RWA Academicians and Artists' Network members, all of whose work I personally love. Alison Bevan

some of the artwork selected by Alison Bevan

All artwork in the exhibition MUST BE within the maximum size limit of 20 inches (50cm) including frame. That means lots of artworks - but they're all small. Many of them are also very affordable.

Artists can also submit up to six artworks - and it's always really interesting to see which were the artists that the selectors were competing over - as in the artist ends up in two or more selectors exhibitions

You can also see the online exhibition in its entirety via https://www.discerningeye.org/shop

Note that this page states "To explore this year's catalogue either scroll down to view the entire selection or search for a particular artist, title or medium" but I can't see how you do this since all those filters are missing from the menu of filter options!

Awards

This is the Instagram reel of the announcement of the awards. I can't see anything on the website as yet as to who won what.....

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (@ingdiscerningeye)

REFERENCE

Website: https://www.discerningeye.org/2022

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingdiscerningeye/

Online Exhibition: https://www.discerningeye.org/shop Artworks will be available to browse and buy online until 31 December 2022.

Exhibition Venue: Mall Galleries The Mall London SW1 - North, East & West Galleries

Dates: 11 - 10 November 2022

Hours: 10am - 5pm

Admission: FREE

Demonstrations: 

• Tuesday 15 November - Jane Dickins and Paul Trussell
• Wednesday 16 November - Elizabeth Meek and Rae Birch
• Thursday 17 November - Tony Anderson and Guglielmo Alfarone
• Friday 18 November - Thomas Cameron
• Saturday 19 November - Annam Butt
• Sunday 20 November - Paul Regan and Shirley Cullum

Wildlife Artist of the Year won by Cy Baker

This year's open competitions for the Wildlife Artist of the Year - sponsored by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation and BBC Wildlife attracted a total of 1,654 artworks from 850 artists in 55 countries.

The competition amongst wildlife artists from all over the world was won by Cy Baker - about which there's more below!

Wildlife Artist of the Year was established in 2008 by David Shepherd CBE FRSA (1931 – 2017) and embodies his vision for ‘The Art of Survival’ i.e. using art for wildlife conservation. It's now co-sponsored by BBC Wildlife who used to also run a (separate) Wildlife Artist of the Year competition. It used to be very confusing at times!

Below you can find out more about the exhibition and how to see it - and who won the awards and prizes.

That's a decrease across all three categories: No. of artworks, no. of artists and no. of countries - compared to 2021. That said, it's comparable with 2020. Both exhibitions during the Pandemic were online only. The Online Exhibition 2022

Those selected for exhibition - and awards - were identified last week.

As somebody who has followed this exhibition every year and visited the Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries since 2008, I feel very, very sad this year that the exhibition this year is an ONLINE GALLERY ONLY EXHIBITION and I can't see the artwork 'up close and personal'. 

It's such a shame as we come out of the worst of the pandemic that we're not seeing this art competition returning to a proper art exhibition in a gallery - as is now happening with other regular art exhibitions at a national level.

I'm hearing from various organisations that they can no longer afford to exhibit at the Mall Galleries. The thing about managing a business is you can't price yourself out of the market - and you need prestigious exhibitions like this one to remain a gallery that people want to exhibit at.

The 2022 entries are grouped in galleries according to different categories which are 

Online Exhibition by the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators

If you've ever considered moving on from an interest in drawing and painting animals to becoming a Natural Science Illustrator, you may well be interested to view the Online Exhibition of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.

It coincides with their 2022 Virtual Annual Conference which has finished the Core Conference - with workshops to come on 20–21 & 27–28, 2022.

2022 Juried Members' Exhibition by GNSI Artists

You can view the Online Exhibition here

Imaginative and stimulating art in "Planet Future" Exhibition

The theme of the annual art exhibition for sixth form colleges is "Planet Future"

This is the national art exhibition for sixth form college students. It contains a lot of very thoughtful imaginative and creative art from students at various sixth form colleges in the UK.

I was impressed by the diversity of media used, topics tackled and different approaches used to portraying messages about sustainability and the current and future risks to planet earth.

"The sustainability agenda has never been more important and the exhibition highlights students' hopes and fears about the future, while also showcasing their enormous creativity and innovation,"
Alex Burghart, former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education - who launched the exhibition.

As I began to look at the art it struck me that there's a bit of a gulf beginning to open up between art created by younger people - who are focused on things which matter a lot to them - and artwork by much older people in other exhibitions where the artwork seems to be more traditional and very often demonstrates little interest in topical issues.

 

My favourites included the following. 

• Click the links in the title to see a much larger image online. 
• I've also included links to the students where I could find them online.

Hope for the future by Ruby Currie (Woodhouse College) 

I particularly liked the use of the textile art and its use of various messages addressing many different aspects of contemporary life and issues of concern and the designs she used to catch attention. 

The RWS Open at the Bankside Gallery

The RWS Open is back and on display at the Bankside Gallery between 4th and 20th March. This post reviews what I can see online (while sat on the sofa with my post surgery non weight bearing ankle elevated on my knee scooter!)

Jennifer McRae

David: West End Summer

watercolour on paper

63 x 130cm

£9500

Why the RWS Open is different

The Royal Watercolour Society has a different approach to open exhibitions when compared to most other national art societies. It has 

• a special open competition and 
• an exhibition dedicated ONLY to those who are non-members.

I'm bound to say this is, very probably, because they exhibit at the Bankside Gallery which is smaller than other venues used by national art societies and hence including open entries in a mixed exhibition with members would mean 

• either fewer works by members (which they wouldn't like!)
• or the number of non-members who were exhibited would get squeezed - which would mean they wouldn't attract a lot of entries.

Anyway - after a year's break due to the Pandemic (when all the art galleries were closed a year ago) - the RWS Open can now be seen at the Bankside Gallery - except by me. I'm not back on both feet for at least another three weeks and probably not walking until the end of April.

So - how to review this exhibition? Well all I can do is look at it online - so that's what I'm going to do.

The RWS Open Online

The first things I noticed are that 

• it's changed its name:
• it used to be known as The RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition (see the 2020 competition/exhibition)
• it's now branded as The RWS Open

Formerly known as the Contemporary Watercolour Competition (among many other names during the exhibition's 50+ year history), the RWS Open is the largest open-submission water-media exhibition in the world, attracting thousands of submissions nationally and internationally each year.

• the Online exhibition is NOT on the Bankside website. Instead ALL the images of the artworks are on the RWS website. That means that 
• the RWS website can archive ALL its past exhibitions online. 
• Let us not forget that storage of images is not expensive and it seems crazy to go to all the trouble of putting on an exhibition only to pass up the opportunity to continue selling images from the exhibition or by artists in the exhibition after the exhibition closes! 
• I think this is very sensible strategic marketing move and one which I wish more art societies would copy!

One thing which remains unchanged is that Selection is down to a small group of RWS members. For the 2022 RWS Open, the selectors were the President of the RWS plus three other members and a guest Judge

• Jill Leman PRWS (jillleman.co.uk) President of the RWS
• David Remfry RA RWS (davidremfry.com) He used to be Professor of Drawing at the RA Schools
• Chloe Fremantle RWS (chloefremantle.com) - elected to membership of the RWS in 2021 so a new eye in relation to what's on offer
• Wendy Jacob RWS (wendyjacob.com) - paints in gouache and is a regularly selected for various juried exhibitions 
• Brit Pruiksma (Founder of Mothflower) - the Instagram account @mothflower is a curated account of artwork which now has some 60k followers since its creation in January 2020.

The Online Exhibition

Some comments on how the online exhibition works and then I highlight the artists whose artwork I liked.

Display online

The fairly small thumbnails (compared to some other exhibitions) provide name of the artist and whether the artwork has won a prize.

The display scrolls easily on my iPad Pro (i.e. it's not limited by pages) except for the fact it works better in portrait mode than landscape.

However in my opinion, the RWS website makes THREE BIG MISTAKES