Friday, March 10, 2017

Ash to Art - over £500k raised for Glasgow School of Art Fire Appeal

25 major international artists were each sent debris from the remains of the fire at the Glasgow School of Art and asked to make art for the Ash to Art Auction
Each artist was sent a piece of debris specifically chosen for them with a note telling them what it was, where it was from and explaining the concept. The brief was left open for each artist to interpret what they received and create their own new piece of art.
On Wednesday, a Christies auction of the resulting artworks (as part of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale) by 25 of the world’s leading international artists use raised

  • a grand total of £706,438, including buyer’s premium, 
  • almost £570,000 NET will actually go to the campaign Ash to Art campaign run  by J Walter Thompson, on a pro bono basis, on behalf of the Glasgow School of Art's restoration programme.

Jenny Saville’s charcoal on canvas called “Ashes” went for £269,000 and realised the most money for an individual piece of art.

Jenny Saville (b. 1970)
Ashes - sold for $269,000 / £220,000
signed and dated twice 'Saville 15-16' (lower left)
charcoal from Mackintosh Library on canvas
51 ¼ x 63in. (130 x 160cm.)
Executed in 2016-2017

Artists chosen by J. Walter Thompson London, and including seven Turner Prize winners, come from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to create a distinctive body of work, reflecting the international importance and influence of the Mackintosh Building on those who studied there and further afield. Christies
The full list of artists who participated in the auction are:
  • Alison Watt -  Scottish painter Glasgow School of Art (1985-1988)





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    Posted by Making A Mark on Friday, March 10, 2017 0 comments
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    Wednesday, March 08, 2017

    Christopher Green wins Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2017

    The winner of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2017 is a large scale ink drawing by Christopher Green. He wins the £15,000 First Prize and the Gold Medal funded by The Lynn Foundation.

    This post tells you about the prize and how to see the exhibition of selected works. It also contained images of the exhibition, my commentary on the exhibitions and references past blog posts about this prestigious competition.

    Lynn Painter-Stainers - The Prizewinners Wall 2017
    • the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize aims to encourage the very best creative representational painting and promote the skill of draftsmanship.
    • over 1,000 artists submitted more than 2,000 works
    • 105 paintings were selected
    • You can see all the works in the 2017 exhibition on the competition website
    • The exhibition can also be seen in the Main Gallery of the Mall Galleries until 18 March 2017. Admission is free
    Lunchtime, Liverpool Street is a very calligraphic drawing/painting with a lot of intense tones and masses of content and detail - although it's not drawn in a hyper-realistic way.

    Winner of Lynn Painter-Stainers First Prize 2017
    Lunchtime, Liverpool Street by Christopher Green
    ink on paper  142 x 136 cm £5,800
    Apparently, the artist spent two months standing outside a London branch of McDonald's drawing the scene that won this top prize in the UK art world.
       The work was created in sections. There are (I think) 48 pieces of paper on which the drawing has been created. He's been meticulous with the crossovers. You're aware that it's a composite but there's nothing in the crossovers that prompt this realisation. Everything butts up beautifully!

    Christopher Green completed The Drawing Year at The Prince's Drawing School (now the Royal Drawing School) in 2008, after graduating with an MA Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art.

    a close-up of the winning painting by Christopher Green

    Other Prizewinners


    The other prizewinners are as follows:
    • Second Prize (£4,000) Self-Portrait in a Peanut Factory by Michael Chance
    • Brian Botting Prize for Works for the Human Figure (£5,000) : Elfe by Júlia Moscardó i Chàfer (to be awarded to an artist aged 30 or under for an outstanding representation of the human figure.)
    • Young Artist Award (£4,000):  Victoria by Jessica Burgess, Oil, acrylic, collage on canvas,100 x 100cm, £850
    • The People's Award (£2,000) will be announced at the end of the exhibition.
    Second Prize
    Self-Portrait in the Peanut Factory by Michael Chance
    Oil on board,122 x 152cm, £8500

    Winner of Brian Botting Prize for Works for the Human Figure
    Elfe by Júlia Moscardó i Chàfer
    Oil on board,66 x 66cm, £2000

    Winner of Young Artist Prize
    Victoria by Jessica Burgess, 
    Oil, acrylic, collage on canvas,100 x 100cm, £850

    Commentary on the exhibition


    I sat in the middle of the exhibition and tried to work out why the exhibition looked different.

    My conclusions were as follows:
    • There are lots of familiar names - typically people who enter competitions - and get selected - but also some of the members of art societies who enter competitions plus somebody I'd not hear of before.
    • Fewer drawings than usual - which is odd given that this prize is supposed to be about contemporary representation drawings as well as paintings
    • overall the exhibition fits the brief of being contemporary and representational. 
    • The selected works are also diverse in terms of how they've been drawn or painted
    • However, the palette of colours is NOT diverse. 
    I knew that there was something about the colour which kept tugging at my brain and finally I worked it out. 

    The palette throughout the exhibition is earths, blues, greens and neutrals. There's incredibly little within the red-purple spectrum (see the images of the exhibition below to see what I mean). What little red there is really bounces off the wall at you.







    More about the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize (2008-2017)

    2017
    2013
    Posted by Making A Mark on Wednesday, March 08, 2017 1 comments
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    Tuesday, March 07, 2017

    The Top Botanical Art Show in the World - Video

    I made a video at the weekend about the RHS Botanical Art Show 2017. It's now available to view on my YouTube Channel - and below.

    I think it's the first time that a video has ever been made showing all the exhibits in the show - as well as the overall size of the show. It's made up of about 50 small videos of different parts of the show.  Next year I'm going to have to try for mini-interviews as well!

    Overview of the exhibition
    For the uninitiated, this is an international and very prestigious show. Botanical artists jet into London from all over the world as well as all over the UK to exhibit at this show. It's not uncommon to have artists from at least five continents represented.

    In my opinion, this is the top botanical art show in the world because of
    • the challenge it presents to exhibitors
    • the sheer quantity and quality of botanical artwork on display 
    • the status of the botanical artists who exhibit - it's revered by leading botanical artists who know the value of an RHS Gold Medal.
    This year, the show at the end of February in the RHS Lindley Hall in Westminster had
    • 26 artists from 8 different countries around the world each exhibited a minimum of six botanical artworks; and
    • nine RHS Gold Medal-winning exhibits on display
    • some of the best technical use of watercolours for painting that you're ever likely to see
    • masses of visitors, many of whom were buying the art on display.

    Video of the RHS Botanical Art Show 2017


    Below you can view my video (8 minutes 36 seconds) about the show



    You can read my comments about the exhibition in Video and review of RHS London Botanical Art Show 2017 on my dedicated botanical art blog.

    If you want to know more about what's involved in exhibiting at this show you can
    • review a couple of pages on my website
    • Plus take a look at this video from 2014 (below) when I interviewed Denise Ramsay about her Gold Medal and her approach to developing her exhibit. He six paintings were all bought by Dr Shirley Sherwood - and exhibited at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens.

    More about the show

    I'm already looking forward to next year when the show will be in the summer.

    Past blog posts relating to this year's show (to date) include:
    Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, March 07, 2017 2 comments
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    Sunday, March 05, 2017

    Review: The Big Painting Challenge - Episode 4 (Portraits)

    This week we had the The Big Portrait Challenge! and my particular challenge was this post. It's rather long!

    In the BBC Big Painting Challenge this week:
    • Jennifer had to paint hair rather than use hair in her painting!  
    • David got to grips with using oil paint - for the first time in this series, while using a palette knife - for the first time!  
    • Plus two more of the ten "enthusiastic amateur artists" who started the series are not returning next week after hearing the judges thoughts on their work this week!

    Who's an enthusiastic amateur?


    Before we start, it's become apparent to me from various comments I've seen posted online that the playing field is not level.

    I'm not sure you can or should describe people who have studied or are studying art in a higher education context as "enthusiastic amateur artists" as the BBC does.  Most would regard such study as training for becoming a professional artist.  If you study the profiles of the contestants, you'll see what I mean.

    I see this as something the BBC needs to think about if repeating this challenge. I love seeing people with a formal art education trying to improve their art - but I'm none too happy with seeing them described as enthusiastic amateurs or ranked on a par with genuine amateurs. The latter term needs to be reserved for Jimmy, Alan, David, Angela and some of the others who exited early who may do classes but have not participated in a higher education course.

    Here's some ideas for the BBC:
    • Maybe they need to get better at promoting the opportunity to participate amongst "enthusiastic amateur artists"? 
    • Maybe think about whether there's scope for more than one programme about finding art a challenge - for people at different levels?
    • Ensure that the really genuine amateurs get some extra coaching before they start to even out the playing field?
    • OR just stick to having a challenge limited to genuine "enthusiastic amateur artists". That means making those who have studied art within higher education or been employed in 'art or illustration or graphic design' either now or in the past ineligible for the Challenge. We'd have had a different winner for the last series if that had happened at the outset.
    The final judgement at the end of Episode 4 of The Big Painting Challenge
    The venue for the challenge this week was the National Portrait Gallery and very grand it looked to!  The two teams worked in the galleries and it appeared for at least part of the time they were doing it while the gallery was open to the public - judging by all the faces peering in at them.

    The First Challenge - a self-portrait


    Their first challenge was to produce a self-portrait in two hours. It was pointed out to the artists that while two hours might be fine for doing a drawing, it was very tight for producing a painting and they needed to work really quickly.

    There's no question that in this challenge, some artists had significantly more experience e.g. the bio for Jimmy says he regularly attends life-drawing classes at Glasgow School of Art.  Now that's something a lot of amateur artists do.  Maybe more than some of those who have been art students at university or college....?

    I guess this happens because portraiture is a genre which many amateur artists are drawn to. Making images of family and friends and those you love is something lots of amateurs like to do. In Angela's case, this seems to be limited to her furry friends - which wasn't going to help a lot with the challenge!

    The criteria to be used for assessment were:
    • accurate proportions
    • sense if character
    Mentors' comments included:
    • A  classic mistake involves starting with the details. Artists should aim to start with big blocky shapes and work towards detail.
    • Proportions need to be thought about from the start - relating size of head to the canvas and the size of features to the size of the head
    The biggest challenge was, of course, seeing whether or not Jennifer could actually paint from observation. (You can read comments she got below.)

    It was also interesting to see
    • which artists had some awareness of proportions in portraits (David and Jennifer) while others were very inexperienced when it came to painting people.
    • how they struggled with the mirror - and working out what sort of pose or profile would make them look like themselves.  Would a bigger mirror have helped? Maybe it was intentionally small so they could only do their heads?
    • how those wearing glasses (Jimmy and Ruaridh) kept wanting to take them off in the painting. I've always thought glasses are a god-send as they give you a whole load of extra lines and angles which help you to check your freehand drawing of the features around the middle of the face.  It turned out Daphne agrees!
    • they still very clearly had issues about time management and assessing what approach might work best within the very tight timeframe of two hours.  I'm beginning to think that the BBC ought to be telling them what the challenges are in advance so they can at least practice painting to a time limit (eg paint a self-portrait in two hours). I'm wondering whether challenges like those in the series form any part of the selection process or whether it is all paper and interview based.
    I'm fascinated how every time they introduce Daphne Todd they emphasise that she won the BP Portrait Award - and yet forget to mention that for many years she was the first female President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (1994-2000)!

    There were some memorable comments when it came to the judging.

    Lachlan seemed to have decided to get a bit more air time...
    The surface of the flesh looks like spam (Lachlan about Ruaridh's neck in his self-portrait) 
    This is Jimmy with botox - there's a slab of flesh you've got across the side of this painted face (Lachlan about Jimmy's self-portrait minus glasses) 
    The thing I can't help but notice is the moustache - Lachlan about Angela's self-portrait
    Bottom line the message was clearly about - watch what you're doing with both your brushwork and colour!
    READ MORE......>>
    Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, March 05, 2017 11 comments
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    Thursday, March 02, 2017

    A Guide to the British Museum

    British Museum - Great Court and stairs
    It's interesting how sometimes those who do not live in a country produce some excellent guides to national institutions relating to the Arts

    The New York Times Culture Pages has produced an excellent Guide to the British Museum. It includes:

    • an excellent map which can be downloaded and saved to your phone
    • Five Must-Sees - I wouldn't disagree with her choice of must-sees - although the choice might be considered by some to be for those with eclectic tastes
    • Off the Beaten Path - Her list of lesser-known but not less-important pieces reside in five galleries - and I realised I maybe hadn't yet got round to visiting three of them!
    • Unexpectedly Quiet Spots - She found all the places I like going for a spot of quiet contemplation and relief from the tribes of tourists and children. My favoruites are the drawing and print galleries in Rooms 90 and 90a and the absolutely fascinating Galleries about the Age of enlightenment in Rooms 1 and 2 which seem to be bypassed by those heading for the dead Egyptians.
    • Going With Kids? - Children are ALWAYS rampant within the British Museum - either with single parents trying to occupy their offspring at weekends or on school visits during the week. However if you're going with kids I agree with the Guide it pays dividends to plan ahead and focus on doing a few things due to the sheer size of the Museum.
    • Tips for visiting - Some very sound points made. I didn't know the one about making use of the back entrance on Montague Street to avoid the long lines at the front. 
    You will still go through a security point, but there are always far fewer people.
    The guide was written by Roslyn Sulcas grew up in South Africa, and has lived in Paris, New York and now London, where she writes about culture for the New York Times.
    Posted by Making A Mark on Thursday, March 02, 2017 0 comments
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