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

Antony Williams wins HSF Portrait Award 2024

At the revamped National Portrait Gallery on Tuesday evening, Egg Tempera painter Antony Williams was announced as the winner of the very prestigious £35,000 Portrait Award - now sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills, a law form and long time sponsor of the NPG.

We were all very thankful to return to the formal Awards Ceremony, given the combination of the refurbishment of the National Portrait Gallery and Covid meant we hadn't had an Awards Ceremony since 2015 - and five years is a very long time to wait....

I'll comment on the differences I noticed in a future post - but first the awards....

The HSF Portrait Award opened to the public at the NPG today and continues until 27th October 2024. It is however not where it used to be due to the reconfiguration of the gallery. You'll find it at the far end of Floor 2. It's free to enter.

HSF Portrait Award - First Prize (£35,000): Antony Williams

Antony Williams winning first prize is a testament to all those who are willing to keep trying and to keep entering and who can wait 29 years to win the first prize!

Winner of the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024

Jacqueline with Still Life by Antony Williams RP NEAC

I, for one, will very much miss seeing Antony's wonderful egg tempera portraits in this competition - I've seen seven of them. He is an absolute master of the egg tempera medium and has won a number of other awards during his career to date. 

Antony is an artist who has previously had his artwork selected to hang in the Portrait Award Exhibition on 10 previous occasions (in 1995, 1998, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020) and, notably, won Third Prize in 2017.

I had a chat with him recently and told him that I confidently predicted he would win. He does after all fall very neatly in to the category of one type of winner - who is selected on a regular basis over the years and has previously won either second or third prize - or the Young Artist Award. I simply could not see him being shortlisted for an award this time and not winning (although Michael Gaskell will attest to the fact it does happen!). I have to say I was much more confident that he would win than he was, although that might be because he's had so many entries accepted which have not won! He does know I crunch the numbers though....

As I remarked in my blog post about the Shortlist for The Portrait Award 2024 Antony had become the last of "the regulars" who has been not yet won this Award.

He and I both knew he had won as soon as they began to introduce the second prize winner. As soon as the word "Florence" was said, I knew he'd won it. I have to say he was very calm about it all. I found him in the crowd with my iPhone and was taking pics of him waiting for him to be announced as the winner of the First Prize. Apparently some of those in his party also realised he had won and were a tad more emotional about it!

The next day I got a pic of him with his winning painting of one of his regular models and some of the still life which he paints regularly. I thought it was a really interesting composition. It presents a really interesting interrelationship between the different objects in the picture plane and enhanced the potential for narrative explaining how they came about.

Jacqueline with Still Life with Portrait Award Winner 2024 - Antony Williams

Egg Tempera on wooden board;

1222cm x 668cm (48 inches x 26 inches)

The Judges were impressed with Williams confidence and mystery of the egg tempera medium. They felt the composition was nuanced and surprising. The painting sustains your attention, encouraging the viewer to unpack and make sense of the connections between Jacqueline and the still life elements in the background, creating an intriguing and enigmatic portrait.

Still life is in fact one of Antony's main interests and I think most of the paintings I've seen from him in the past in this competition had some element of still life in them. It helps to tell the story of the artist, the model and the place where they are both working. However he does also paint very intricate interlaced paintings of heads as well. His website is well worth a good look (see link embedded in his name at the top) to see why egg tempera is so very different from painting in oils or acrylics.

I've always been attracted to it because of the scope to create optical mixes of colours, and Antony told me about the way he approaches a painting like this. I have to tell you there's a lot more sitting underneath all the various mark-making than you might think!

More about egg tempera

I now know where I went wrong when I did an egg tempera course at the V&A! Below I've listed the egg tempera posts I've written for all those now interested in the media who want to know more - which also references famous paintings in egg tempera

• Egg Tempera Class at the V&A: The support and the drawing
• Egg Tempera Class at the V&A: the pigments and the grinding
• Egg tempera class at the V&A: painting with egg tempera
• plus An egg tempera day - which is about a workshop with another egg tempera painter 

Second Prize (£12,000): Isabella Watling

The second Prize of £12,000 was awarded to Isabella Watling for Zizi. 

Review: The 6th John Ruskin Prize

Yesterday I went to the exhibition for The 6th John Ruskin Prize at Trinity Buoy Wharf - and I was VERY impressed! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND paying this a visit if you like artwork which has been made by thoughtful artists who make you think!

Below you can find out about:

• what is the John Ruskin Prize
• why it's worth a visit 
• how to see it
• who won the prizes on offer
• names of artists shortlisted for the exhibition

What is the John Ruskin Prize? (In a nutshell)

Selected from over 4000 entries, the final shortlist of 78 pieces from 68 artists, makers and innovators have been given a platform for the unseen to be seen and the unspoken to be heard. 

The John Ruskin Prize:

• is a multi-disciplinary biennial art prize in the UK
• was inaugurated in 2012 by The Guild of St. George and visual literacy charity, The Big Draw. 
• Entry is eligible for all artists, designers and makers - especially those whose artwork defies easy categorisation
• encourages entries in a wide array of media
• requires all submissions to respond to the theme of the biennial exhibition
• The judging panel consisted of Narinder Sagoo MBE, Cornelia Parker CBE RA, Bob and Roberta Smith RA, Gary Hill, Julian Stair OBE, Dr Rachel Dickinson and Jane Barnes.
• Organised and delivered by The Big Draw

The prize aims to reflect a central thread of John Ruskin’s thought; as a writer and artist - and as an impassioned critic, not only of art but of society and life - he believed that art has the power to reveal and celebrate universal truths, and that a good artist and maker in any medium should always be guided by that search.

The Prize used to hold an exhibition every other year - but the pandemic made sure that didn't happen so this is the first one since 2019.

These are links to the past exhibitions on The John Ruskin Prize website

• 2012 (1st) A New Look at Nature - https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/the-1st-john-ruskin-prize
• 2014 (2nd) Recording Britain Now - https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/the-2nd-john-ruskin-prize
• 2016 (3rd) Recording Britain Now (Society) - https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/the-3rd-john-ruskin-prize
• 2017 (4th) Master of all Trades - https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/the-4th-john-ruskin-prize
• 2019 (5th) Agent of Change - https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/the-5th-john-ruskin-prize - this attracted over 1260 entries / 3000 artworks.

If after reading this review and/or visiting the exhibition you're interested in entering the next one - in 2025 for an exhibition in 2026 - you may like to read the Submission Guidelines & FAQS for the 6th Exhibition

The 6th John Ruskin Exhibition

In summary:

• Artists were invited to respond to the theme for the 6th John Ruskin Prize Exhibition in 2024, Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Unspoken. This could be explored and interpreted in many different ways. 
• Artwork for the 2024 Exhibition was selected from over 4000 entries from UK and international artists. You can see the Judges here.
• The final  shortlisted artworks of 78 pieces from 68 artists, makers and innovators can be seen at The Buoy Store, Trinity Buoy Wharf, until February 17th (more details below)

Entries were welcomed from artists, designers, architects and makers, at all stages of their careers. For the first time, entries were open to 

• the medium of photography 
• creatives across the globe (but only in respect of digital entries).

Why this exhibition is worth a visit

The 2024 John Ruskin Theme - Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Unspoken

The theme for the 6th John Ruskin Prize

One of the requirements of this exhibition is that ALL artworks must respond to the set theme. 

WHAT DO I NEED TO SUBMIT FOR THE JOHN RUSKIN PRIZE? 

Make sure your work responds to the theme, Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Unspoken? Submission Guidelines and FAQs

The exhibition theme is a major characteristic of The John Ruskin Prize. 

• It's very much NOT just a "send us your artwork" exhibition. 
• Hence, by definition, it appeals to a certain type of artist who has no problem creating artwork based on a concept.

It also means that the exhibition can include artwork which comment on current or recent topical issues.

The standard of artwork in this exhibition is unusual. In terms of thoughtfulness, imagination and creativity, in my opinion, it far exceeds artwork typically seen in most open art exhibitions. 

Wendy Barratt is Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (Series 10)

Wendy Barratt won the 10th series of Portrait Artist of the Year on Wednesday night last week. She is, in my opinion - and in the opinion of many of those whose comments I've seen online - a very worthy winner. 

I predict good things and a lot of commissions in Wendy's future due to her skill in painting portraits. She's both grounded in drawing and traditional skills and yet has a very contemporary style of painting which both appeals to a wide range of ages and tastes - and looks good in contemporary spaces.

Wendy's PAOTY Portrait Paintings
(left to right: self portrait submission; heat (Nicky Spence);
Final (Dame Joan Bakewell); Semi Final (Emma Bunton);
Commission for Final (her husband Fred)

This week's review has been postponed while I travelled north and then moved "my inheritance" south at the weekend. The intention was to start writing the review on the trains up and back - but inevitably it didn't quite work out like that. Then I experienced a domestic emergency when I got home which delayed matters further - but here we finally are!

I'm going to do the Final and the Commission separately so Final today and hopefully Commission tomorrow.

This review covers: 

• The Final: Artists, Sitter and Set
• The Judges' Perspective
• The Final Portraits - and my comments
• Why Wendy won.
• READ: How to enter the competition in 2023

The Final: Artists, Sitter and Set

The Finalists

The three finalists are:

• Wendy Barratt
• Davide di Tarantino
• Lorena Levi

You can read more about them in Which PAOTY Semi Finalists will be in the PAOTY 2023 Final?

For me, one artist in the Final had been a foregone conclusion since Heat 6. Wendy Barratt had 

• amply demonstrated her artistic skills, sensitivity and mental toughness in her heat to make her presence in the Final a foregone conclusion - by me. 
• Her subsequent calm and well considered performance in the Semi Finals simply outshone everybody else and I must confess by the end I in no doubt she would be selected for the final - but was also assuming she would win!

I was rather more surprised by the other two. Although both offered a great range in terms of style and technique, I thought there were also other artists who should have given them a challenge. Instead of which their decisions about how to impress at the Semi-Final Stage backfired somewhat. Or maybe they weren't sufficiently different.

Resulting in Davide and Lorena becoming the other two finalists. They offered:

• Davide - the ability to paint portraits as if they were produced in the past - but always small
• Lorena - an approach where likeness is not always delivered and a technique which relies heavily on line but is not intended to be illustrative

Of the three, I think Wendy was probably the most experienced portrait painter - from life and with reference to photos.

Sitter and Set

The Sitter

Dame Joan Bakewell

For the tenth series, the makers of the series decided to honour Joan Bakewell (i.e. The Right Honourable The Baroness Bakewell DBE HonFBA FRSAl ) by asking her to sit for the Final.

As Joan had her 90th Birthday in April 2023 - when Series 10 was being filmed - this last episode of the 10th series is to be Joan Bakewell's last appearance on Portrait Artist of the Year. She's been hosting from the very beginning - but she is now not always able to make the filming for every episode.

I for one will be extremely sorry to see her disappear - not least because her comments on the Judges choice and views about indiivdual portraits were very often much in line with mine!  

However I and am very glad to see her being the sitter for the Final. Not that she sat still a lot. In fact she was probably one of the worst behaved sitters in this series! :)

"She's a great sitter, bad at sitting"

I loved the clothes and colours which highlighted Joan's inimitable sense of style. I absolutely loved them.

LAOTY Winners - Where are they now?

There have been five female winners and three male winners of Landscape Artist of the Year and this post is an update about who they are and what's happened since.

If you want to add yourself to this list, NOON on Monday is the deadline for entries to Series 9.

Series Winners

The winners of the different series of Landscape Artist of the Year are as follows

• Series 1 (2015) - Nerine McIntyre who paints under her maiden name of Nerine Tassie
• Series 2 (2016) - Richard Allen
• Series 3 (2017) - Tom Voyce
• Series 4 (2018) - Jen Gash
• Series 5 (2019) - Fujiko Rose
• Series 6 (2021) - Ophelia Redpath
• Series 7 (2022) - Elisha Enfield
• Series 8 (2023) - Finn Campbell-Notman

So where are they now?

The review below indicates that many of the winners have continued to develop strong series of artwork in their own personal styles.

It's possibly worth asking yourself, before you enter, whether you have a clear style and themes to your artwork.

 

Nerine McIntyre (2015)

Nerine McIntyre paints under her maiden name of Nerine Tassie.  She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2002 with a degree in Fine Art.

Natural spaces and forms provide the basis and inspiration for her work, in particular the coastal waters and woodlands around her home. These landscapes are ever changing and at times daunting and they provide infinite subject matter for her work. Her paintings are primarily an exploration of the mystery of nature within this subject matter and she says she has always sought to create a strong sense of atmosphere and connection to place within her work.

Since winning in 2015, her website indicates she has been very active in exhibiting each year - with a number of different galleries - and that her landscapes are typically isolated, dark and sombre.

Recent work by Nerine Tassie

Website: https://www.nerinetassie.com/

Richard Allen (2016)

Richard Allen attended Central Saint Martins College in London as a Fine Art (Painting) student, continuing his studies there at post graduate level. In 2016, Richard Allen won the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year. As part of his prize he undertook a number of commissions for the National Trust.

Richard Allen's paintings combine unflinching scrutiny of the subject with bravura mark-making. Whilst there is a playfulness in the occasional use of ephemera and images within images (still-life paintings of photos and postcards, scenes assembled from virtual reality) there is also an commitment to the act of observation, the act of painting and making an intensified version of reality.

He has also worked as an illustrator 

• winning several international accolades (Association of Illustrators golds, Society of Illustrators LA gold, Society of Illustrators NY silver, 3x3, Commarts), 
• working with many well-known clients including the New Yorker, The NY Times, Esquire, and most high-profie UK and US newspapers and magazines. 
• In 2017 he won the V&A Illustration prize, winning the Editorial Illustration award and the Moira Gemmill Memorial prize for Illustrator of the Year. 
• In May 2019 he won the V&A Award for Illustrated Journalism.

He has exhibited with various galleries and some open exhibitions. His work is held in public and private collections internationally.

His website indicates he paints more portraits than landscapes.

Website: https://richard-allen.com/

Instagram: arichardallen

Tom Voyce (2017)

Born 1989 in the UK. Tom Voyce is a British painter whose subject matter comprises of a variety of different themes such as interiors and semi abstracted landscapes, often within the notion of place and transit. He also teaches workshops.

To me, there's more than a bit of a hint of Richard Diebenkorn.

"In Transit" Series by Tom Voyce

Website: https://tom-voyce.com/

Instagram: tomvoyce_art

Twitter: tomvoyce_art

Jen Gash (2018)

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2023

I visited the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 211th Exhibition twice last week - once for the preview and again the next morning when it opened to photograph the artwork without hordes of people in front of it!

This is the biggest exhibition of paintings in water colours in the UK and it's well worth a visit. I've always enjoyed visiting this exhibition - and missed it last year due to surgery

RI Preview Evening in the West Gallery

MY APOLOGIES: I had planned to be posting this review rather earlier but last week turned out to be VERY busy for five days straight and I woke up on Sunday feeling very distinctly under the weather. I need to get better at pacing myself! The fact I can now walk again without pain (in my ankle) does not mean I'm getting any younger!

Deborah Walker RI and Chris Myers PRI - both displaying four artworks in the West Gallery
I was particularly impressed by Deborah's paintings of the water's edge
and Chris's painting of snow

For artists - both members and those selected via the open entry, this exhibition offers:

• several prizes and awards (see below)
• the chance to have your work seen alongside artwork by RI members
• the opportunity to exhibit at a prestigious gallery in the heart of London
• have your work seen by very many visitors - some of whom regularly buy watercolour paintings

I've decided to adopt a different approach and write the key conclusions up front and then follow up with images.

Key Conclusions about the RI 211th Exhibition

PAOTY Commission - Painting Sir Lenny Henry (aka Len)

I thought the programme about "Painting Sir Lenny Henry" - the £10,000 National Portrait Gallery Commission of Sir Lenny Henry, painted by the winner of Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 - was one of the best commission episodes ever in the history of the programme

This is a review of that programme and the process of the commission undertaken by Morag Caister - the winner of Portrait Artist of the Year (see Morag Caister wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9) ).  It will "unveil"

• the commission
• the sitter
• the artist and her process
• the likeness and the skin

Before the Unveiling

About the Commission

Every year the last episode in each series of the "Portrait Artist of the Year" programmes, made by Storyvault Films and broadcast on Sky Arts, is about the £10,000 Commission awarded to the winning artist.

The commission this year was from the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London. Sarah Howgate, the Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the NPG - who manages the Gallery's Commissioning process - explained how the Gallery has several photographs of Sir Lenny Henry at various points in his career - but no painting and how they'd wanted to commission one for a while.

Morag Caister wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9)

Morag Caister won the Final of  Series 9 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 on Wedensday night this week! 

This is a slightly different review this week. One which seeks to explain what we saw, what the Judges opined and why we arrived at the eventual result.

It covers

• The Artists in the Final;
• The Judges' Perspective
• The Portraits - all 5 - and my comments
• Why (I think) Megan won.
• READ: How to enter the competition in 2023

Waiting to hear the Final PAOTY 2022 decision

The Three Finalists - and the sitter

The three finalists were, in alphabetical order

• Morag Caister
• Binny Mathews
• Nina Ruminska

The Artists in the PAOTY 2022 Final
(left to right: Morag Caister; Binny Mathews and Nina Ruminska)

You can find profiles of the first two in Portrait Artist of the Year - The Semi-Finalists

The Day Science Met Art
An overview of the Final with the three artists, the sitter and all the cameras and film crew

The sitter for the Final is a very clever man and articulate communicator who we first encountered - as a nation - during the Pandemic Briefings at No. 10. 

The sitter was the former Deputy Chief Medical Officer Sir Jonathan Stafford Nguyen-Van-Tam MBE FRCPath FRSB FMedSci. His speciality is influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness which provided an excellent basis for his support during Covid-19 Pandemic.

He also has a very strong head - and stare!

The Sitter - Sir Jonathan van Tam

The Judges' Perspective

The Judges recognised that they had intentionally selected three very different ways of creating portraits - with different approaches to line, colour, tone and likeness.

What they were looking for on the day was:

• somebody who doesn't project their own feelings - but rather somebody who picks up on the 'vibes' of the sitter and responds to those
• something new and refreshing

The Final Portraits - and my comments

Royal Society of Marine Artists - Prizes and Awards 2022

I visited the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists last week. This post focuses on the prizes and awards and tomorrow's will be my review of the exhibition. It's critical of how these are announced on both the RSMA and Mall Galleries websites. I recommend much more attention to detail and timing in 2023.

Feature wall in the East Gallery of the RSMA Open Exhibition 2022

The RSMA 77th Exhibition continues 

• at the Mall Galleries in London 
• until Saturday 1st October 2022. Hours are 10am to 5pm.

The Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2022 presents works inspired by the sea and marine environment, including harbours and shorelines, traditional craft and contemporary shipping, creeks, beaches, wildlife.

You can also see it online on the Mall Galleries website

This was my post about the Call for Entries: Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2022

I stopped focusing on prizes and awards when writing about FBA Society Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries when their blog picked up this very necessary communication. However I note there's been no announcement to date of awards on the RSMA website

• Given one of the attractions of submitting artwork to an open exhibition is the possibility of adding your winning an award to polish up your CV this seems to me to be a big mistake. 
• Also if you want people to sponsor awards then announcing them online is also very important. 
• More importantly, it's important to have an accurate and up to date listing - and the one on the RSMA website is out of date as well as missing prizewinners
• If you value the work of the artwork submitted then you need to demonstrate this very cogently by communicating about it after the announcement. 

AND 

• the link to the announcement on the Mall Galleries website is only identified via Facebook. It's not referenced on the exhibition page or in the News section!
• PLUS it doesn't identify any of the awards by the sponsors' name on the page about the awards!! (How to Keep a Sponsor Happy - NOT!)
• AND it's incomplete!!!

However people change in terms of both societies and the galleries holding the exhibition and sometimes people lose sight of what's important....

So I'm back with a post featuring prizes and awards. Not that I've got a list of these because there was none at the front desk! So whether or not there's a picture depends on whether I spotted the sticker on the wall - which incidentally I think could usefully be in a different colour to mark it out from the artwork details sticker.

View of one of the walls in the West Gallery

RSMA Annual Exhibition 2022: Prizes and Awards

The BAE Systems Award

Value: £5,000

Kathryn Maple wins £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize

Many congratulations to Kathryn Maple who has been awarded the First Prize of £25,000 in the John Moores Painting Prize 2020 competition.

The Common, 2020
Acrylic on canvas, 222 x 246 cm
Kathryn Maple

I'm pleased that her painting won. I've been saying for a very long time that it is a great pity that almost all painters totally ignore the scope for adding people in groups into paintings. 

View of all the shortlisted artists with Kathryn Maple in the centre

The John Moores Painting Competition - held on a biennial basis at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool - is an extremely prestigious competition and previous winners of the John Moores Painting Prize have included artists such as

• 1959: Patrick Heron - "Black Painting - Red, Brown and Olive: July 1959
• 1967: David Hockney -  Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool
• 1972: Euan Uglow - "Nude, 12 vertical positions from the eye"
• 1993: Peter Doig - "Blotter"
• 2014: Rose Wylie -  "PV Windows and Floorboards"

I haven't always liked all the choices made by the varying Judging Panels in recent years - but knew as soon as I saw Kathryn's painting of "The Common" in the Virtual Tour of the Exhibition that it had an excellent chance of winning first prize.

The Common in the exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery

The Common evokes the quiet moments of urban mundanity, where observed and imagined worlds cross paths. Kathryn describes it as a ‘...meeting place, an intersection, people seemingly aware of each other, but minds elsewhere – all sharing an open space...’. Kathryn’s work frequently returns to ideas around these ‘resting places within a city’, where nature is seen and celebrated.

You can watch the announcement of the award, which happened this afternoon, in this video - which also includes:

• comments by the Judges on every painting and why they shortlisted it - something of particular interest to anybody wanting to submit work for the next competition in 2022. Of Kathryn Maple's paintings they said that it resonated

"perhaps because it depicts the very thing we are currently unable to share: the painting resonates with movement and communality, and embodies the deeply social nature of humans,"

• the faces of all five artists as they wait for the announcement of who has won
• the very sneaky way that they announced who had won with none of the usual - "and the winner is" followed by a long pause - as it was obvious!

The Common will now join the permanent collection of the Walker Art Gallery, and will be among 67 entries on display when it is able to reopen.

About Kathryn Maple

I first met Kathryn Maple at the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in 2014 - when she won first prize. (see my blog post Kathryn Maple wins Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014)

Winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2014

Fatboys Diner (88cm x 64cm )

by Kathryn Maple

She won the SRWC first prize AGAIN in 2016 with another watercolour painting of her trip to India. (see my blog post Kathryn Maple wins Sunday Times Watercolour Competition for second time)

View five prizewinners and the paintings selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2020

 You can now:

• view the paintings selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2020
• see who's been shortlisted for the £25,000 First Prize
• find out who has won tomorrow , Thursday 4th March, at 4pm

This post follows on from my two earlier posts relating to this exhibition:

• Selected artists for John Moores Painting Prize 2020
• Call for Entries: £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize 2020 + NEW Prize

A Virtual Tour of the Exhibition

As lovely as it would be, to be able to open our doors and welcome you in to enjoy #JMPP2020, you can experience all of it virtually from wherever you are.

Drop in 👉https://t.co/pfp2NUSVan pic.twitter.com/f9rpONFiPY

— John Moores Painting Prize (@JMPaintingPrize) February 28, 2021

The Walker Art Gallery has got one of the best approaches to viewing art hung in an art gallery.

So for the exhibition of the John Moores Painting Prize 2020

• they're using the Matterport video system for a Virtual Tour via online viewing
• it has all the normal options (dolls house, floor plan, full screen) 
• you can just press go and it will take you round the exhibition. It takes you round at a reasonable pace i.e. fast enough you scoot past the ones you're not impressed with - with scope to stop and take a closer look when a painting captures your fancy!
• or you can navigate yourself 
• it ALSO has each individual painting identified with the artist's name running below the virtual view of the gallery (and superimposed on the paintings). You can use the up down (tail less) arrow bottom left to switch this on and off
• plus a price list for all the paintings with all the artist's names, thumbnail, title of the painting and price

The John Moores Painting Prize brings together the best in contemporary British painting right now.

Supporting artists from all over the UK – whether they’re undiscovered, emerging or established in their careers – the prize provides a platform for artists to inspire, disrupt and challenge the British painting art scene today.

All entries were judged anonymously over a two-stage selection process by our panel of judges.

Prizewinners

The five prizewinners (clockwise from top left):
Robbie Bushe, Michele Fletcher, Kathryn Maple, Stephen Lee and Steph Goodger

The longlist i.e. the names and artworks selected for the exhibition - was announced last November.

The five prizewinners eligible for the £25,000 First Prize (or the consolation prize of £2,500 each) were announced in February. 

• This is a film about them
• They are listed below - with images of their selected painting.

Jiab Prachakul from Thailand wins BP Portrait Award 2020

The BP Portrait Award Prizewinners have been announced and three of the four prizes, worth a total of £66,000, have gone to non-UK artists.

Below you can read about each of the prizewinners (they are also featured in my blog post BP Portrait Award 2020: Shortlist and Exhibition announcements)

It's very weird this morning to be writing a blog post announcing the prizewinners without having met them or photographed them the previous evening receiving their awards - as I have done every year since 2008!

The Virtual BP Award Exhibition has also opened today in a virtual Wolfson Gallery - the traditional venue and rightful home for what is, perennially, the most visited exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - the BP Portrait Award Exhibition. It will be touring (hopefully) later in the year to Aberdeen Art Gallery. The catalogue, priced at £9.99, will be published on 5 May and available from Waterstones and all good online booksellers.

This is the link to visit the online virtual exhibition on the National Portrait Gallery’s website, while the Gallery in London is temporarily closed due to the current Coronavirus pandemic.

I'm currently having problems viewing it on Google's Chrome browser and haven't yet worked out what's blocking it my view of it - but I can see it fine when using Safari.

I'll be doing my customary review of the exhibition - and will also select the 10 portrait paintings I like the best later this week.

Sadly this year, there will be no blog post of artists with their paintings - or will there. If you have a photo of you with your portrait which was selected for the exhibition please let me know and I'll add it in to the selected artists post Selected Artists for BP Portrait Award 2020 Exhibition

First Prize (£35,000): Jiab Prachakul (Thailand) for Night Talk

Night Talk © Jiab Prachakul
(1000 × 1000mm, acrylic on canvas)

Jiab Prachakul winning portrait, Night Talk, portrays Prachakul’s close friends Jeonga Choi, a designer from Korea, and Makoto Sakamoto, a music composer from Japan, who are pictured in a Berlin bar on an autumn evening. The portrait explores notions of individual identity and how perceptions of selfhood can change over time.

Her portrait was selected from 1,981 entries from 69 countries. The judges thought the work was

‘an evocative portrait of a fleeting moment in time, giving us a glimpse into someone else’s life that is beautiful, mysterious and alive. It is loosely painted and the bold composition makes clever use of contrasting shapes.’

The First Prize won by Prachakul comprises:

• a cash prize of £35,000 
• a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery’s Trustees’ discretion, worth £7,000 (agreed between the National Portrait Gallery and the artist). 

Jiab Prachakul was born in in 1979 in Nakhon Phanom, a small town on the Mekong River in northeast Thailand. She studied filmography at Thammasat University before working as a casting director at a Bangkok production company, finding talent for advertising campaigns.

In 2006, Prachakul relocated to London where she had the ‘instant realisation’ that she wanted to be an artist after viewing a David Hockney retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. She moved to Berlin in 2008 and began selling her pictures at a local flea market and set up an online fashion brand, designing merchandise based on her artworks, which she continues to run from her current home in Lyon. Her artwork has been seen in solo exhibitions in the UK, Germany and France.

She is entirely self-taught and this is also the first time she has been selected for the BP Portrait Award exhibition.

Katie Sollohub wins Derwent Art Prize 2020

Yesterday the Prizewinners in the 5th Derwent Art Prize - sponsored by Derwent were announced.  See Derwent blog post.

This blog post is about the prizewinners, the exhibition and how you can vote for the People's Choice Award.

Plus a comment about the experience of viewing competition artwork as a digital file in 3D software

Prizewinners

• see the artworks which won prizes 
• find out about the artists who created them

Exhibition

• find out about the new arrangements for the exhibition in the current coronavirus context
• learn how to view the exhibition online
• issues arising from digital images and 3D software

People's Choice Award

• learn how to vote for your favourite artwork in the online exhibition

This was my blog post about the Call for Entries - 5th Derwent Art Prize 2020. You can see more blog posts about past Derwent art prize exhibitions at the end of this blog post.

Prizewinners

The first thing that struck me was that the Derwent Art Prize is now very much an international prize and one seen as prestigious to the careers of young up and coming illustrators.

Two of the prizewinners - the winners of the Young Artist Awards - are both Chinese - although one currently lives in the USA.

The next thing which struck me was that both winners of the main awards are women. (Cheers!)

I can't think what's happened to men who use drawing materials - but I dare say there are a fair few in the exhibition (of which more below)

First Prize

The First Prize of £4,000 plus a year’s supply of Derwent products was awarded to Blue Bedchamber (Strawberry Hill House) by Katie Sollohub

Winner of Derwent Art Prize First Prize
Blue Bedchamber (Strawberry Hill House), 2017 by Katie Sollohub
60 x 84cm cm (h x w), charcoal on paper
£850

Effortlessly evoking a feeling of light and breeze, her winning piece represents Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, a heritage site where she worked in 2017.

• Nationality:  British
• Occupation: 
• artist (in residency or working on commission / "roaming residencies") and 
• art teacher (teaching art to all ages for over 20 years)
• Current home: Shoreham on Sea, Sussex
• Art education: studied Social Anthropology at Sussex University and Fine Art at Northbrook College
• Previous appearances in this award: none
• Website: https://www.katiesollohub.co.uk/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/KatieSollohubsCreativeJourneys/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiesollohub/
• Twitter https://twitter.com/katiesollohub
• Previous Competitions: Lynn Painter Stainers Prize (2015-2016); ING Discerning Eye (2015); RA Summer Show
• Previous Awards: Awarded £9,500 grant from Arts Council England to undertake Guest in Turner’s House residency, Twickenham
• Title / Media: Blue Bedchamber (Strawberry Hill House) 2017, 60 x 84cm cm (h x w), charcoal on paper

Her interests include

• documenting and recording the places she lives and works in through drawings, paintings, performance, photography and poetry.
• drawing and painting the interiors of buildings - on commission

Katie’s work explores the narrative components surrounding objects, memories, interior and exterior spaces, brought to life with her spectacular use of colour and detail.

As a teacher she champions drawing as a fundamental element of art practice.

Why I'm not reviewing the ROI and RMS Exhibitions - yet!

The short answer is that it's very definitely not for the want of wanting to travel into London to see the annual exhibitions of:

• The Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)
• Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS)

at the Mall Galleries this week and next - until 1pm on Sunday 8th December.

The longer answer is I've been kiboshed by my duff ankle yet again. Earlier this month a Consultant Radiologist at Barts Hospital gave my ankle an ultrasound and announced I had three bits of bone floating free in my right ankle.  I looked at the picture - they looked rather big and rather sharp to me. They probably account for why I keep suffering from extreme pain and immobility i.e. I have to stop walking. I knew from the last lot of scans in 2016 that I had one bone fragment in my ankle due to my osteoarthritis (it had broken off). It would seem that the increasing rate of problems with my ankle is almost certainly due to the increased number of slivers of bone which are in places they shouldn't be.

Being on my feet for much of the evening at the PV of a new exhibition last week finished off my ankle for this week. Hence why I have not yet visited these two exhibitions which I always love to visit.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Shopping this morning was OK for the first half and not OK for the second half - which suggests that a trip into the Mall Galleries might have to wait a bit longer still. I hope to get there at some point next week.

More about the 2019 Annual Exhibitions

Mall Galleries pages with details of each exhibition are below

• Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2019 27 November 2019 to 8 December 2019
• Royal Society of Miniature Painters Sculptors and Gravers 2019 28 November 2019 to 8 December 2019
• both are open 10am to 5pm (closes 1pm on final day)

Below are some links to those who would like to visit or catch up on who has done will in the prizes and news of demonstrations

Royal Institute of Oil Painters

The Mall Galleries website includes a virtual exhibition of the work in the show. Just scroll down this page to see most of the works in the exhibition.

ROI 2019 prizewinners on the ROI website is a news item about the winners of the prizes at their exhibition - with images of the winning paintings - one of which is pictured above.

White Peonies in a Green Bowl by Linda Alexander ROI SBA
Winner of the The Alan Gourley Memorial Award
Oil on linen, 42cm x 42cm
£2950
(Currently in the ROI Exhibition at the Mall Galleries)

The ROI Art Event Evening will be held on 3 December 2019, 6:00pm to 8:30pm - however the event is now sold out.

Royal Society of Miniature Painters Sculptors and Gravers 2019

This page on the RMS website details the awards made to artists as a result of artwork exhibited in the 2019 Annual Exhibition.

I'm very pleased to see that Dorian Radu, an artist who has been a client of mine is amongst the prizewinners. I thought his painting skills might be well suited to the demands of the RMS - where paintings are limited to not bigger than 4.5" x 6" (11.5 x 15cm) - and recommended their open exhibition to him!



The RMS have member artists demonstrating on the following days.

• Sun. 1st December - Marian Tumelty VPRMS - A composition of natural objects in watercolour on vellum.
• Mon. 2nd December - Paul Eaton VPRMS - Sculpture using investment casting wax to create original sculpture, using low voltage soldering iron and various stainless-steel carving tools
• Tues. 3rd December - Alison Griffin RMS - A Conservatory interior scene in acrylic, on board
• Wed. 4th December - Carole Flanders VPRMS - A Dog in water mixable oils, on paper
• Thurs. 5th December - Michael Coe RMS - Portrait on vellum, in watercolour
• Fri. 6th December - Barbara Valentine RMS - Still Life in watercolour, on ivorine.
• Sat. 7th December - Helen White RMS - Medieval inspired designs in watercolour, on vellum