Friday, September 17, 2010

Keith Coventry wins £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize 2010

Keith Coventry's work Spectrum Jesus has won the £25,000 The John Moores Painting Prize 2010.
[The John Moores Painting Prize is] the Oscar of the British painting world
Sir Norman Rosenthal, curator and former exhibitions secretary at the Royal Academy
The John Moores Painting Prize 2010
Spectrum Jesus (2009) by Keith Coventry
Oil on canvas, wood and glass, 68.6 x 58 cm (27" x 22.8")
First held in 1957, The John Moores Painting Prize is the UK's best-known painting competition.  It started in 1957 and is named after Sir John Moores (1896 - 1993) who founded the prize.  Every two years the competition has an exhibition held at the Walker Art Gallery every two years - which always coincides with the Liverpool Biennial.

The Walker Art Gallery and the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust are the two partners behind the exhibition and they keep the principles underpinning both the competition and exhibition constant:
  • to support artists and 
  • to bring to Liverpool the best contemporary painting from across the UK.
The JM2010 exhibition is on show 18 September 2010 - 3 January 2011 at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.  It does not tour to other cities. 

If anybody is going to the exhibition and writing a review please let me know and I'll give it a link in "who's made a mark this week?"  There's a chance I might be able to get to see it before it finishes but that won't be for a while.

Links to related websites and activities

These are links to:
  • the online catalogue - which has a page about the artist but nothing about the work "Spectrum Jesus".  I think I'd have preferred a statement about the painting rather than a statement about the artist's work.  I was left with the feeling this prize has been given to a painter rather than a painting.  [UPDATED: However I finally came across a blog post which attempts to explain the painting - although these words come from a commentator rather than the artist so far as I am aware.  I do wish competition organisers wouldn't assume we all had a complete inventory of all art history at our fingertips!]
Depicting the face of Jesus Christ, Spectrum Jesus is based on Han van Meegeren‘s notorious forgeries of the 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. The painting is a blue monochromatic image, part of a series rendered in the palette and style of the German Expressionist Emil Nolde
Online catalogue listings for the other prizewinners

Four other artists each won £2,500.  Their entries can be seen in the links below

Jury Selection

For those curious about the selection of prizewinners and/or interested in entering the exhibition next time around this is
Online catalogue listings for artists selected for the John Moores 2010 exhibition

    Posted by Making A Mark on Friday, September 17, 2010 0 comments
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    Thursday, September 16, 2010

    Patricia Cain wins £25,000 Threadneedle Prize 2010

    Patricia Cain - a pastel artist and writer with a major interest in the practice of drawing - has won the £25,000 Threadneedle Prize 2010 for figurative art. This means that this Prize has been won by a female artist in every one of the first three years of its existence.  Sheila Wallis won in 2009 and Nina Murdoch won the inaugural prize in 2008.

    Building the Riverside Museum, Pastel, 110 x 170 cms, SOLD
    Patricia Cain stands in front of her prizewinning work
    which won the £25,000 Threadneedle Prize 2010
    The work which won her the prize is Building the Riverside Museum.  Patricia also has a second work in the show - Inscape 11 - which I chose for my shortlist.   As I said yesterday 
    It's really good to see works in pastel being appreciated in a competition of this kind.
    I was at the Awards Dinner last night at the Mall Galleries in London and watched her receive the award from Julian Fellowes, listened to the interview with Patricia and also talked to her after the dinner about her win.  (I have a set of photos Threadneedle Prize Dinner 2010 on Flickr for those who are interested.)

    One of the unique aspects to Patricia Cain is that she is a woman of many talents.  She started out studying art - then switched to the law, gained an LLB, passed her Law Society Finals and spent the next 15 years alternately practising as a Solicitor in England and subsequently Scotland and studying to complete a Fine Art degree in Cumbria and her PhD in Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art!

    She has been an Honorary Research Fellow with the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute at Glasgow University and currently works as a Curator at the Royal Glasgow Institute Kelly Gallery as well as being an active and award-winning practising professional artist.

    She says she has no regrets about giving up the law to become a full time artist! 

    Patricia has been winning art prizes for some time notably for her drawings and her pastels.  Prior to last night's prize, in 2010 alone she has been a Finalist in the International Drawing Annual and won
    Patricia lets her eye choose her subjects and says she's found that she seems to like structures which are half built.  She commented that all the construction workers at the Zaha Hadid-designed Riverside Museum in Glasgow have been hugely supportive of her project of recording the process of it being built.  Drawing in this instance neessarily involved drawing with a hard hat on!

    What's particularly interesting is Patricia's approach to her work which she describes in her 'artist statement'.
    Working in a way where the making leads the process very often means 'not knowing what you're doing', and I’ve been using drawing, painting and writing as a means of exploring the explicit and implicit aspects of my own thinking process. I've written about how it’s possible to examine one’s own ways of thinking through making drawings as part of my research. 

    My own particular process begins by allowing my eye to chose my subject matter for me, and very often I'm drawn to complex structures which through making and observing, I find myself having to make sense of. I have latterly looked to my urban environment in Glasgow where I live for my subject matter.

    The more I make things, the more familiar I become with my working processes and understand how through an interaction of the known and the unknown, my thinking process evolves. I once heard James Spence say that an artist should consider himself lucky if through making art he came to know himself better, and I very much agree with his sentiment.
    The title of her PhD Thesis, Glasgow School of Art/Glasgow University was Drawing as coming to know: how is it that I know I make sense of what I do? and I suspect it forms a substantial part of her new book (see below).

    I was interested to find that we both shared a tutor in common - Jeanette Barnes whose practice and teaching is very much focused on the construction of large spaces and large interiors.  

    The Threadneedle Prize Exhibition continues at the Mall Galleries until 5pm on Saturday 18th September.

    Patricia Cain's new book about Drawing

    Patricia's new book about Drawing - published in June this year - is about how drawing as an eanactive process helps us understand the world.  Enactive knowledge is knowledge that comes through action and is constructed through the use of motor skills. 

    Her book is published by Intellect and is available at the Mall Galleries and via Amazon in
    Framing Patricia Cain's pastel artwork

    Patricia's husband, Sam Cartman frames her work and I talked to him about how to present a pastel as a conventional painting - ie without a mat.  I'd observed in the Pastel Society exhibition back in April (see The Pastel Society - Annual Exhibition 2010) that this was becoming amore popular method for framing pastel works.

    Bear in mind this is a very large work.  He used a six foot paper wrapped wooden spacer inserted into the rebate of the frame of Building the Riverside Museum.  The side spacers then hold in the two similar shorter spacers top and bottom.

    The object of the spacer is, of course, to ensure that the pastel work does not touch the glass.

    _________________

    Tomorrow, I'll be posting about who won the £10,000 Visitors' Choice Award


    Links to previous prizewinners:
    Links - Threadneedle Prize 2010:
    Posted by Making A Mark on Thursday, September 16, 2010 3 comments
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    Wednesday, September 15, 2010

    My Threadneedle Prize shortlist

    Last year I decided to institute my shortlist for the Threadneedle Prize - see Selection for Threadneedle Prize & my shortlist.

    In 2010, unlike the judges I'm not proposing to work as a team in selecting my shortlist from works in the Threadneedle Prize 2010 Exhibition - so my perspective is a unique one!

    My shortlist for the Threadneedle Prize

    Interestingly, three of the works I've chosen for my shortlist this year are sculptures and seemed to me to be strong pieces which I certainly rated higher than some of the works included in the selectors' shortlis.  They were all pieces which were really memorable for me - and ones which i walked around and looked at a lot more than some of the paintings in the exhibition.

    Two of the works are on the selectors' shortlist and a third is by an artist on the shortlist.

    Inscape I by Patricia Cain

    Inscape I by Patricia Cain
    Pastel, 170 x 105 cms
    £5,500
    Patrica Cain has two of the Riverside Museum drawings in this year's exhibition and is one of very few artists to have more than one work included.  One of her works is shortlisted for the prize but I actually prefer this one.

    It's really good to see works in pastel being appreciated in a competition of this kind.

    You can see more of her Riverside Museum drawings on her website

    Road Side by Paul Cummings

    Road Side by Paul Cummings
    Acrylic on canvas, 240 x 240 cms
    £18,000

    This work definitely leaves an impression when you see it for the first time.  It leaves even more of an impression when you see it in person for the first time as it is huge.

    It's also shortlisted for the prize.  I guess of all the works shortlisted it's the one that will be most probably be remembered by those visiting the exhibition.

    Car Boot Closing by Thomas Doran

    Car Boot Closing by Thomas Doran
    Oil on wood, 10.5 x 13 cms
    SOLD

    This work is on the selectors' shortlist for the Threadneedle Prize.

    I was absolutely amazed when I saw this in person as I thought it was quite a large painting.  In fact, while not a miniature per se, it is certainly a very small painting.

    I loved the incongruity of the objects and setting and it seemed to me to take a somewhat wry look at the urban landscape.  This was the work I voted for because it was the one I remembered the next morning.
    Never mind urban foxes, I give you car park elves.  On a flat January day I glipsed this sub-Narnian scene through a wire fence and felt obliged to commeromorate it.....some conjecture and good old artistic licence was necesssary but I resisted the temptation to tidy up too much, staying true to the basic compsition as first seen for better or worse
    Plexus by Valerie Jolly

    Plexus by Valerie Jolly
    Tissue paper, water, PVA glue, 106 x 62 x 21 cms
    £8,000

    There's an amazing translucence in Valerie Jolly's cast sculpture - in tissue paper. I think this might very well have been my winner if it had been included in the selectors' shortlist.
    I cast objects in sticky wet tissue paper and when the paper dries, what I peel off carries the form and marks of the original, only it is colourless and weightless. This technique enables me to capture, almost literally in the sense of “stealing”, all the details, even the most minute ones, of the original object without damaging it. The formal and material qualities of the tissue paper also allow me to deconstruct, reconstruct, transform the original object/space into something else.
    You can see more of her sculptures on her website - I also particularly liked her 3D drawings

    Sunlight in Rodins House by Peter Kelly

    Sunlight in Rodins House, Oil on canvas, 54 x 39 cms, £3,500

    Sunlight in Rodins House by Peter Kelly
    Oil on canvas, 54 x 39 cms
    £3,500
    I really like paintings which do what this one does - catch a fleeting glimpse of light and shadow in any place but art galleries in particular.  The bigger picture that they create can be entrancing and they are often ones I like staring at again and again.

    This painting has a wonderful grasp of tonal values and subdued and muted colours.  The artist is a master of the art of contrast.

    It's one that I could live with very happily should it be hanging on my wall.

    Its a Bloomin Marble! by Garry Martin

    Its a Bloomin Marble! by Garry Martin
    (Ed 1 of 10) Marble dust, polyester resin, 35 x 25 x 25 cms
    £2,500

    I just kept walking round and round this completely audacious work by Garry Martin which challenges your perception in a major way.

    To all intents and purposes it looks as if it's solid marble sculpture of a balloon resting purely on the balloon's tied 'end'.  It made me feel like I dare not breathe and certainly couldn't go too close in case I might knock it over.

    Learning that it is in fact marble dust and polyester resin persuades me that it might not be damaged if its balance should be disturbed for any reason.

    I liked walking round and round it just looking at how the cast shadows and reflected light changed as I did so.  I took more photographs of this one than any other in the show and was hard put to choose just one for this post.

    Oil Baron by Martin Roberts

    Oil Baron by Martin Roberts

    Mixed metal, 158 x 95 cms
    £12,500
    Oil Baron is a fun piece by Martin Roberts which brings a smile to the face of everyone I've met who has seen it.  I met the sculptor last night and heard a bit more about how it was made.  The top half is a found object - an old Castrol oil can.  He cast the legs and the cloven hoofs for it to sit on.

    I loved the way I couldn't quite tell whether or not the thighs were designed for the piece or were yet more found objects

    You can see more of Martin's sculptures on his website - which is also good fun!  How nice to be able to smile when viewing an artist's website!

    Announcement of the Threadneedle Prize 2010

    Tonight, I'm off to the Awards Dinner at the Mall Galleries where the winners of the prizes will be announced.

    More about this tomorrow!  I did however have a read of some of the comments in the Comments book and there are certainly others like me who thought that the £10,000 Visitors' Choice Award should have been chosen from any of the pieces in the show - as happens for The BP Visitors Choice Winner

    Links to earlier posts about the Threadneedle Prize 2010

    Posted by Making A Mark on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 3 comments
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    Monday, September 13, 2010

    Kurt Jackson and the River Dart

    There's a great audio interview in The Guardian with Kurt Jackson about his new series of paintings about the River Dart in The Guardian.  If you click the link and press start you can hear it above a slideshow of photographs of his current exhibition Kurt Jackson - The Dart which is on at the Lemon Street Gallery in Truro until 2nd October
    The Dart is a new exhibition by the renowned West Cornwall-based artist Kurt Jackson that tells the story of the artist's detailed exploration of the River Dart in Devon. Jackson talks to John Vidal about his love for the countryside, from the barren, windswept moorland to the untouched ancient woodland. 
    It started in 2009 and appears to have been developing over the last year or so.  This time he has gone from sea to source.

    Up above the West Dart with the willow warblers July 2010
    Mixed media 56 x 60.5cm
    copyright Kurt Jackson

    What I love about the paintings is they've captured all those tangles and tunnels which you often get with rivers when they're a bit smaller.  Plus the sheets of reflected light which is how I always remember the Dart.

    I like the way that looking at the way he paints makes me think more about the way I construct work.

    His exhibition includes drawings and paintings of plants which remind me a bit of Charles Rennie Mackinstosh's work at Walberswick

    On exhibition at the Lemon Street Gallery


    I think one of things I love most is the double dose of nature that I get every time I look at his work and read his essays
    Ring ouzel, high brown fritillary, southern damselfly, bog hoverfly, marsh fritillary, Dartford warbler, southern marsh orchid, goshawk, salmon, spotted heath orchid, lamprey, marsh violet, hen harrier, sea trout, otter, osprey, eel grass, cornish moneywort, blue ground beetle, nightjar, small-leafed lime, wood warbler, greater horseshoe bat, red grouse, alder buckthorn, keeled skimmer, wood ant, goosander, cirl bunting.

    Here are more links to details about the exhibition for all Kurt Jackson fans. I do like the trouble the Lenon Street Gallery goes to show off the work of its artists properly.

    Kurt Jackson - The Dart

    Posted by Making A Mark on Monday, September 13, 2010 4 comments
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    Sunday, September 12, 2010

    12th September 2010: Who's made a mark this week?

    Life by Akash Batt
    This week the winner of the London Lives competition was announced and the exhibition associated with the competition opened at the Bankside Gallery on Thursday.

    Akash Bhatt gold award winner
    with his painting 'Life'
    The image, Life, by Leicester born artist Akash Bhatt was painted on used newspapers and shows of Wembley. It will be reproduced to a large scale and then emblazoned centrally on a hoarding line that runs along the eastern side of Blackfriars Road Bridge, where it will remain in that position for one year and be seen by up to 10 million people.

    Not a bad prize for winning an art competition!

    Akash’s work will now also feature in a public selling exhibition of the top 100 works at Bankside Gallery, London, from the 9 September 2010 to 19 September 2010.

    Art Blogs

    Drawing and sketching
    • Bill (Profile Reportage) wrote about Veronica Lawlor - click this link to see the 9/11 drawings
    I recently attended a conference where New York-based illustrator Veronica Lawlor spoke about the drawings she created on September 11, 2001.  She ran towards (and drew) the towers as they fell. These emotionally-charged reportage drawings are now part of the Smithsonian Collection in Washington. 
    • In the past we've grown used to seeing Laura Frankstone (Laurelines) recording her immediate family on her blog Laurelines - whether sat around at home, or at weddings or demanding attention as only new babies can!  It's therefore not in any way a surprise to me that Laura also chose to record her mother in drawings as she visited her over the last 11 months from the day her mother was only given a few weeks to live.  Last Sunday Laura's mother died - and you can see some quite remarkable drawings on her blog in A time out to be with her. and My mother's death.  I'm very sure her mother was very proud to have a daughter like Laura.
    • Check out Liz Steel's blog Liz and Borrowmini for sketches of her tour of the Great Houses of England.  But you can maybe get a better sense of how many sketches she's producing on her "royal tour" by taking at look at Borrowmini's photostream on Flickr.  Or to put it another way - 5 weeks into her 11 week world tour she had to break out a new pan of Ultramarine for her paintbox.  I'm hoping to be sketching Kew Palace with her next Wednesday.
    • Great post by James Gurney (Gurney Journey) about the chisel pencil technique of Ernest Watson - see The El Dorado Page
    Coloured Pencils and Pastels
    Hook Quay by Graham Brace

    Landscapes

    100 faces #11 by Karin Jurick
    Painters and Painting
    • On Wednesday I wrote about Painting from photos which generated a fair few comments  - which leads nicely into.......
    • Karin Jurick's new blog - BUST-ED - is about a project to complete a 100 paintings from mugshots!  The mugshots are by other photographers but they are public information/property.  For me it goes to demonstrate that you can make a photo taken by somebody else your own - but only if as I suggested you've already developed some basic skills.  All Karen's paintings are 4" x 4" and are intended to be quick painterly studies of the face.  I can always trust Karin to come up with something different - and am very happy to recommend you take a look! Also take a look at her main blog if you don't already know it - A Painting Today
    • WindowScapes Oil Paintings by Karen Hollingsworth is a new blog worth which is following for people who are trying to improve their oil painting.  It's not got many posts as yet - but hopefully will become a blog we all love to look at.   I particularly like the clear sense of identity and style which Karin has in her work and her love for her subjects which is always very evident.  Her small works are at auction.
    • Last week, Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) reviewed and highlighted a splendid artist in the imaginary realism genre.  Barbara Kacicek (Barbara Kacicek) produces drawings and paintings and uses the static pages on Her Blogger blog to provide a page for each.  Quite apart from being nice work to look at this is also a good demonstration of how a Blogger blog can now produce an effect very like a conventional website






    • James Gurney (Gurney Journey) has a great post today Quick Draw about a time limited art competition painting plein air. Just goes to show what you can do in two hours!

    Art Business and Marketing

    Art Competitions and Art Societies


    Japanese Still Life by Peter Woof UKCPS
    can be seen in the 9th UKCPS Annual Open Exhibition

    Art Exhibitions and Art Fairs

    Viewing today......
    Rachel Whiteread is renowned for her evocative large-scale sculptures, but drawing has always remained one of her core activities. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore her works on paper, most of which have never been shown before in a public gallery.
    The posters, designed by significant artists like László Moholy-Nagy, Zero (Hans Schleger), and Abram Games, were the crucial face of a pioneering public transport campaign for coherence and efficiency that also included station architecture, train interiors, and Harry Beck’s iconic Underground map (1931–33). 
    Opening next week.......  
    Samuel John Peploe R.S.A, 1871-1935,
    Street Scene, Cassis, oil on board, 33cm x 41cm

    Art History, Galleries and Museums

    • The Guardian:  Lord Sainsbury donates £25m towards British Museum extension The British Museum has received a £25m donation from the Conservative peer.  The gift is said to be largest single donation to arts in 25 years and 'vital' to its new £135m Lord Rogers-designed exhibition space and conservation centre.  
    • The 10 best pre-Raphaelite paintings - Stephen Wildman, director of the Ruskin Library, chooses his favourites from the Brotherhood (some of which I saw last Friday!)

    Art Education / workshops / Tips and techniques

    New art instruction books
    • Who Cares? by artist and author Jean Haines (Watercolours with Life) provides some wonderful tips for an approach to be an artist. If you've ever thought about writing a book, Jean's blog has various posts which highlight how whappens to your life,
    Art Videos

    Book reviews

    Copyright

    Opinion Poll 

    Websites, webware and blogging 

    and finally........

    I'm incredibly busy this next week so posts may be a bit late and/or missing until I can catch up
    • Monday I'm taking artwork 100 miles to Stamford in Lincolnshire and attending a talk in the evening about Who gets the money? (about Arts Funding) at the Mall Galleries in London in the evening
    • Tuesday I'm again entertaining my friend Louise Sackett to more art in London.  After Singer Sargent and the Turners at Tate Britain on Friday, we're aiming to visit the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery and see European Art and British portraits.
    • Wednesday I'm meeting up with Liz Steel (Liz and Borrowmini) and Alison Staite (Art Journey) at Kew Gardens - and then attending the Threadneedle award Dinner in the evening
    • Plus I'm trying to get to see the British Art Fair and the exhibitions of the Society of Feline Artists,  and London Lives on the South Bank
    Wish me luck!
    Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, September 12, 2010 3 comments
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