Review: Episode 1 of Portrait Artist of the Year Series 8 (Autumn 2021)

Portrait Artist of the Year returned to our screens last night for Series 8. This is the first of my reviews of every episode, semi-final and final and the commission over the next 10 weeks or so.

Title caption for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2021 (Series 8)

We learned that the £10,000 commission this year will be to paint Nicola Benedetti - a Scottish-Italian classical solo violinist who won BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16 and is now one of the most sought after violinists of her generation - for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

I think I might have guessed where they might be holding the Final if it's not at Battersea Art Centre!

This is the link to Episode 1 on Sky Arts. It is being broadcast every Wednesday evening at 8pm on Sky Arts Channel - which is available via Sky, Now TV and Freeview.

View of the pod structure inside Battersea Arts Centre

For more about how this art competition works see yesterday's post How Portrait Artist of the Year actually works in practice

The Artists

The artists on their "pic of the artists photocall" outside Battersea Arts Centre

They've not yet got the Artists Profiles upper Series 8 Episode 1 on the usual page - which also usually provides you with a speeded up version of their heat painting. I guess they're processing that and it might appear later today?

The distinction between Professional and Amateur is self-identification and - as always - it's debatable whether some are in the right category.

The order below is alphabetical - not as they appeared on the programme.

The Professionals

There were four professional artists

• Shane Berkery (Website | Instagram) - an Irish-Japanese contemporary artist based in Dublin, Ireland. His cultural background has been a major influence on his work and is a frequent theme in his paintings. Berkery primarily works out of his studio in Dublin and is represented by The Molesworth Gallery.
• Alicia France (Website | Instagram) - Her home town is Rochdale and she is now based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She studied Art for a degree. She is a British artist who won the Portrait/Figure Category Award in the Jackson's Open Painting Prize 2018 (see interview). Paints on aluminium. You can see her "Self-Portrait in Green velvet" on her website.
• Araminta Lawrie (Website | Instagram) - lives in Hampshire creating figurative paintings and classical portraiture with a contemporary twist. Did an Art History Degree at Nottingham University (2010-2013), followed by a Masters at Sotheby's Institute/Manchester University (2013-4). She has also studied at studied at Sarum Studio, Charles Cecil Studio (summer school), London Fine Art Studios, The Art Academy and Heatherley’s School of Art. Works in Public Relations.
• Tedi Lena - (Instagram) - (b.1996) Graduated with a BA (Hons) degree from the Sir John Cass School of Architecture and Design at the London Metropolitan University. In addition to his university studies, Lena attended short courses at Hampstead School of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts. He painted a portrait of Frank Bowling which was selected for the BP portrait Award in 2019. He came with a signer as he is deaf. It worked very well I thought. Good to see people with disabilities on a programme like this. A number of you will recognise some of his portraits in this video about him

The Amateurs

There were five amateur artists

• Nicola Cummings (LinkedIn) Lives in London - is Head of Art at Queens Park Community School. Looked very familiar to me but  I couldn't work out / remember why. She really likes Gabrielle who she got as a model.

Experienced Head Of Art with a demonstrated history of working in the secondary education industry. Skilled in Drawing, Contemporary Art, Art Education, Visual Arts, and Painting. Strong arts and design professional with a Bachelor's degree focused in Fine and Studio Arts from Wimbledon School of Art.

• Joseph Dupre (Website | Instagram) - he's a a UK based artist and doctor. Splitting his time equally between these two passions.   Draws, prints and sculpts. Won the Art Scholarship to Dulwich College for a remarkable series of closely observed portraits in line. Has studied at the Royal Drawing School and has exhibited in various competitive open exhibitions. BUT he's a doctor 2007-2013 - Manchester School of Medicine, MBChB; 2011 - Humanitarian and Conflict Resolution Institute, MA; 2016-2019 - Specialist Medical GP Qualification, MRCGP (I like his bird mobiles!). He did a monoprint for the Heat.
• Kat Hughes (Facebook) - Her self-portrait took 40 hours to complete. Needs to get her online presence sorted!
• Tony Robinson (Website | Facebook | Instagram) - born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK and now lives in Wexford in Ireland. Completed a Fine Art Foundation course there. Graduating with a fine art degree at Stoke-on-Trent he moved to Ireland, working for a time as a mural painter and sign-writer. Founder of plein air festival, Art in the Open (2008), based around Wexford, Ireland. He paints plein air a lot and doesn't normally have the luxury of four hours to complete a painting.
• Denni Waterhouse [Instagram] - Has loved art from a very early age, qualifying in the subject at both GCSE and A-level. Currently in her third year at the University of Art in London. Comes from Grimsby and her local paper wrote about her before the programme.

The Self Portraits

Self Portraits Wall

Most of the self portraits generally seemed to me to be a bit smaller than usual when viewed as a group.

How Portrait Artist of the Year actually works in practice

I was looking back at my previous posts and noticed how much of the Episode 1 post I've done for every series of Portrait Artist of the Year I've reviewed was taken up with explaining how this competitions works - so this year I've decided to do a preliminary post!

This looks at how it all works - in principle and what it's really like in practice! Those inspired by the programme to apply for the series next year 

Plus this is your countdown reminder that the programme starts in a few hours at 8pm on Wednesday 13th October!

Bottom line - it's classic cold dark evening in Autumn viewing!

How this competition works - in principle

Major fans can skip this but - but for the new to the programme - this is how it works.

The programme / series

• The Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year competition is now one of the most important art competitions in the UK since the demise of a number of the other art competitions with significant prizes
• It has been running for several years and this is the eighth series
• The winner gets a major prize - a commission worth £10,000 - to paint the portrait of a major celebrity.
• There are three well known sitters for each heat. Sitters are young and older "celebrities" of varying degrees of recognition - as in I don't recognise a number of the names this year. You'll do better than me if you've caught up with all the series on Sky and Netflix!
• The series is very popular with lots of aspiring portrait artists of various ages - not least because it offers the opportunity for an enhanced profile i.e. it helps marketing if nothing else - so long as you acquit yourself well!
• It also attracts artists who already have an established careers as artists and in some cases are well known and collectable portrait artists. Interestingly a number of more established artists shy away from it because they can't cope with the constraints - see below......

Portrait Artist of the Year is 

• commissioned by Sky TV UK 
• made by Storyvault Films an independent production company.
• broadcast every Autumn - generally starting in October - by Sky Arts Channel on digital television (now also on Freeview) and via the NOW TV app.

The Judges

The judges include leading figures in the art world - who are the same as for previous series:

• award-winning portrait painter Tai Shan Schierenberg. He studied at St. Martin's School of Art and at The Slade. He lives and works in London, Norfolk and the Black Forest in Germany and has artwork in a number of important national and regional public collections
• independent curator, art historian and arts broadcaster Kathleen Soriano worked in museums and galleries for over 30 years. Currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Liverpool Biennial, Trustee of Art UK and was previously Director of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and Head of Exhibitions & Collections at the National Portrait Gallery.
• Her book Madam & Eve: Women portraying Women (2018) - looks at how over 200 women artists have depicted women in art over the last 50 years. 
• arts broadcaster, curator, mentor and writer Kate Bryan is also currently Head of Collections for Soho House. In 2020 she started to present a new series for Sky Arts exploring exhibitions across the U.K called 'Inside Arts'. She is also the author of:
• The Art of Love: The Romantic and Explosive Stories Behind Art's Greatest Couples (2019) which profiles 34 artist couple throughout art history. 
• Bright Stars (September 2021) which examines the lives of 30 great artists that died too young.

#AD NOTE: I am an Amazon affiliate and links to the above books include link to my personal affiliate account. This means that if you buy a book as a result of clicking on one of these links I earn a very small sum. (Income earned in this way helps me finance this blog).

How each episode works

Each episode has three sitters and nine artists (three per sitter), three judges and two presenters.

The interior of Battersea Arts Centre - with one of the segments and easels and kit set-up

• Heats are now held at Battersea Arts Centre - and, in normal times, you can view the programmes being made - as I have done.
• Each of the three artists is seated in one of three sections of a rotunda type frame (think three segments of a pie or cake). There's no choice as to who paints which sitter - and no choice as to what angle you get on the sitter
• Artists have - in theory - four hours to complete a portrait working from a live model - with a break in the middle of the day.
• None of the artists know who their sitter will is until they arrive in the room. (TADAAA!)
• Filming generally takes place in April.

What it's really like in practice

Reality is never quite what it looks like on screen, so I've made a point over the years I've been reviewing this series (I was a latecomer!) of:

• searching for blog posts by those taking part and 
• asking people I met who participated what it was really like.  

Plus when I could be present I've photographed the reality - which, of course, is very different to what it looks like on screen.

For example, this is my album of photos of the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2019 FINAL

This is what the Final actually looks like in the room where it is filmed - and this is what the artists have to contend with on top of painting a portrait live in four hours!

I've been writing about how the programme works in reality and relaying tips and insight from participants in previous posts. (You can read through them all below!)

Here are some of the more important ones

Call for Entries - Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2022

Next March, The Royal Society of British Artists will be having their Annual Exhibition - and they'd like you to enter your art! 

This post is about their Call for Entries

• Entries opened today Monday 11th October 2021
• The deadline for entries is Friday 10 December 2021 - by 12 noon
• For full terms and conditions, click here.

and covers

• the exhibition in 2022
• cash prizes and awards
• who can enter
• what you can enter
• how to enter

The Royal Society of British Artists invites painters, sculptors and printmakers to submit their work for consideration to be shown in the Society’s Annual Exhibition 2022. As well as skill and draughtsmanship, they will be looking for originality and creativity.

RBA Annual Exhibition 2022

The exhibition is being held at the Mall Galleries - between Buckingham Palace an Trafalgar Square - and 

• opens on Thursday 3 March, 10am to 5pm before 
• closing on Saturday 12 March, 5pm

It's a large exhibition which is normally held over all three galleries.

I very much recommend aspiring artists have a go at this one. 

• If an artist's artwork is good, he or she has have a decent chance of getting selected compared to some other open exhibitions and art competitions. 
• There's a tremendous variety of artwork on display in terms of subject matter, style and media used. 

Note that in 2020, I commented that the exhibition was worth visiting because....

the fine art prints - which are simply STUNNING. This exhibition is worth visiting just for the prints alone!

the 3d work and sculpture which is numerous and very varied. The range of media and diversity of approaches is amazing. 

The diversity of styles and media used for drawings and paintings. While some is still traditional, the diversity of styles mean that this exhibition has well and truly lost the air of "fuddy duddy" which it had in 2012.

the hang which is excellent - a huge exhibition remains accessible (apart from the labels - see the end). I very much appreciated the theming of different works - the still life at the entrance, the trees in two different places within the exhibition etc.

the size of the exhibition. They've selected 500 works in total - of which 20 relate to their RBA Star Students. Some of the paintings are hung in 3 rows - but they can cope with it as all remain accessible

Some of the prints in the RBA Annual Exhibition 2021

 

Cash Prizes & Other Awards

This year's exhibition had some extremely impressive artworks which won prizes. This a link to the artworks which won prizes and awards at the Annual Exhibition in 2021.

A variety of Prizes and Awards are on offer. The total prize pot is worth over £5,000

These include (subject to final confirmation):

Cash Prizes

• The de Laszlo Foundation Prize: The de Laszlo Medal for Excellence and £1,500 will be awarded for the best artwork from life by an artist aged 35 or under
• The John Lynn Commemorative Award for a Young Artist: £500
• The Surgeon's Prize: £500
• The Peter Kelly Commemorative Prize: £300
• The Ronald Morgan Memorial Award: £250
• The Gordon Hulson Memorial Prize: £250 for draughtsmanship, variety & exploration
• The Stuart Southall Print Prize: £250
• Nathan David Award for Sculpture: £150
• The Geoffrey Vivis Memorial Award: £100

Publication Awards

• The Artist Magazine Award: The winner will be interviewed in The Artist magazine, print and digital editions
• The Dry Red Press Award: The winning work will be published as a greeting card in the Dry Red Press 'Prize Winners' range, with royalties from the sale of the cards going to the artist

Art Materials & Other Awards

• The Winsor & Newton Painting Award: Art materials to the value of £500
• The Michael Harding Awards: Two awards of 
• £500 worth of Michael Harding art materials, and 
• 10 painting starter sets
• Hahnemuhle Fine Art UK Award: A prize of artist paper, worth £250
• Frinton Frames Award: £200 of picture framing at Frinton Frames bespoke handfinished picture frame makers

Submitting an Entry

Portrait Artist of the Year 2021 starts 13th October 2021

I was thinking the other day that now is the time of year when it gets dark early and once a week I settle down to watch Sky Portrait Artist of the Year.

...and so it has come to pass. Book your armchair for next Wednesday night at 8pm on Sky Arts!

Last year it looked like we might only get Portrait Artist of the Week - as filming was originally due to be held during lockdown - but they managed it in the end. Ditto this year, filming has also taken place - again within constraints - so no audience. But this year Joan Bakewell is back - thank goodness!

Check out the sitters in this year's series in the following video

Dates for your diary

The Judges:
art historian Kate Bryan, artist Tai Shan Schierenberg
and independent curator Kathleen Soriano

• a new series of Portrait Artist of the Year 2021 will start broadcasting on Sky Arts (Channel 11 on Freeview) next Wednesday 13th October 2021. It's also broadcast via the streaming service NOW. Which means block out 8pm for the next 10 Wednesday - that's 8 heats, one semi-final and one Final. 
• plus Landscape Artist of the Year will also return in early 2022 - as per normal. My guess would be this will also be Wednesday starting around the second week in January....

The Sitters

Two sitters - and no arty party backgrounds!

Sitters in the series are:

HEATS: 

• singer / songwriters: Gabrielle; Celeste
• Actor: Philip Glenister, Kelly MacDonald, Lydia West, Hugh Skinner, Daniel Mays, Emma Dabiri, Sophie Cookson, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Polly Walker, 
• Comedian:  Nish Kumar; 
• TV Presenter: Alexa Chung, Gyles Brandreth, Chris Packham, Grace Neutral, David Olosuga (who all do other things as well)
• Author/Journalist: Alistair Campbell; Ian Hislop; 
• Paralympian: Ali Jawad
• Dancer: Arlene Phillips, Sergei Polunin
• Scientist: Maggie Aderin-Pocock 
• Conductor: Karen Gibson  

SEMI-FINAL: Nick Mason (Pink Floyd)

FINAL: to be revealed - probably in the first show!

The Episode 1 sitters are Gabrielle, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Grace Neutral - and I'm obviously completely out of the loop as I only recognise one of those names.... (and don't recognise a number of the other sitters either!)

CATCH UP

This is my blog post about the Call for Entries: Portrait Artist of the Year 2021 (Season 8)

You can catch up on

• previous series on Sky Arts
• my blog posts under this label portrait artist of the year

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp down - what did it mean for artists?

Is it time to think about whether your art business is independent of social media - or too dependent on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp?

Facebook Outage on Downdetector

I'm guessing that quite a few businesses around the world are reassessing how they do business on social media after the major outage for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp yesterday. 

3.5 billion people/companies were left twiddling their thumbs - and inspecting Twitter and Downdetector on a regular basis!

hello literally everyone

— Twitter (@Twitter) October 4, 2021

Of course once upon a time, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were three separate entities - but if anybody needed telling they all belong to Facebook, they'll know full well after yesterday. (Instagram was acquired in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014).

For lots of people their whole business model lost its profile on the internet - and associated sales.

Bear in mind previous outages lasted not much more than an hour. As we went past the two hour mark, it was very apparent that what had caused it was really serious AND they didn't know what hd happened and how to fix it. The corollary of this is that next time it could be days.....

There's quite a few artists reappraising how they use social media to market their art on the internet after yesterday. 

Such as Jim

Plus there's quite a few articles pondering on what happened and whether it was a bit of a wake-up call.

Here's some of them - which you can read at your leisure.

• Are the arts too reliant on socials? | ArtsHub (Australia) - which HIGHLIGHTS the Pros and Cons of the different social media platforms - and why you need a presence if you want to promote your art online.

As the internet went into panic and outage memes showered Twitter (one of the only social platforms still working), users were left re-thinking their daily reliance on social media accounts.

Over the past decade social media has transformed the way artists interact with each other and their audiences. It’s opened a wealth of opportunities, and platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become essential spaces for emerging artists to share and sell their work.

But this relationship between art and social media is complicated. Why? Because art pushes the boundaries, and social media enforces them.

• Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Suffer Worldwide Outage | Billboard - which highlighted the implications for whether this mega social media group can be allowed to continue. Right on top of allegations that Facebook has complete disregard for the harms that some of its products can do to some of its users. My expectation is that this incident will have rollout and repercussions which Facebook might not like....

It also showed that, despite the presence of Twitter, Telegram, Signal, TikTok, Snapchat and a bevy of other platforms, nothing can truly replace the social network that has evolved in 17 years into all but critical infrastructure. Facebook’s request Monday that a revised antitrust complaint against it by the Federal Trade Commission be dismissed because it faces vigorous competition from other services seemed to ring a bit hollow.

More generic (non-art specific) comments on the outage came from the better known publications - in print and online.

• Gone in Minutes, Out for Hours: Outage Shakes Facebook | New York Times - which comment extensively on the much wider implications for how the lack of the platform impacted in very many different ways

“Today’s outage brought our reliance on Facebook — and its properties like WhatsApp and Instagram — into sharp relief,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor of communications at Cornell University. “The abruptness of today’s outage highlights the staggering level of precarity that structures our increasingly digitally mediated work economy.”

• Facebook is back online after a massive outage that also took down Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus | The Verge - which comments extensively on what happened to employees INSIDE Facebook!

Inside Facebook, the outage has broken nearly all of the internal systems employees use to communicate and work. Several employees told The Verge they resorted to talking through their work-provided Outlook email accounts, though employees can’t receive emails from external addresses. Employees who were logged into work tools such as Google Docs and Zoom before the outage can still use those, but any employee who needs to log in with their work email was blocked.

• Facebook is down – but you can still get your misinformation fix | The Guardian - some truisms and some good jokes!

and finally......

• Facebook down: Zuckerberg apologises for six-hour outage | BBC News

Facebook has said it is working to understand what happened so it can "make our infrastructure more resilient". Tech experts have described the issue as being akin to the social media giant falling off the internet's map, so it could not be found.

The company said there was "no evidence that user data was compromised".

The outage comes at a particularly difficult time for the company, which is finding itself increasingly under pressure over its reach and impact on society.