About a fortnight a go I scurried off to Liverpool for a good dosage of culture, as the 2010 Biennial was being held. With various galleries and museums participating in the festival, it seemed like a great time to have a nose and see what was new in the arty-farty world. I headed over to the Walker Art Gallery to check out a painting competition.
For a student of the arts, I find it very discouraging that the majority of these competitions still focus on pompous nonsense when it comes to works of "art".
I was, for the most part, disappointed with this year's John Moores Painting Prize. Whatever happened to painters actually being able to paint? It seems that any so-so can chuck a blob of acrylic onto a canvas nowadays if there's an "idea" behind it. "Oh, it represents the randomness of life." Get over yourself.
Honestly, there were only two or three paintings even deserving of the £25,000 prize, and you can bet your bare arse none of them won because the meaning is too obvious.
"Protest, 1st April 2009" by Nicholas Middleton is a beautiful painting, done in monochrome, of a crowd of people at a rally. The expressions and details are so mesmerising it's almost like looking at a photograph, but the tiny brushstrokes hint at the human talent behind it. I could practically hear the noise of the crowd whilst gazing into it.
Christian Ward's "Frontier Monument" spoke less of obvious talent, and more of imagination. The lack of perspective is overshadowed by the painting's mad colour scheme and landscape. It's a Nirvana that I would have pictured as a child, but that's not to say I wouldn't want to dive into it now. I think my fascination with this one is it's resemblance to something out of "Yellow Submarine". Whilst I was looking at it a group of children ran over to it, exclaiming that it was their favourite. "There's lots of purple", "look at the lovely trees" and "I like the squiggly-armed guy" were some of the phrases they used. I think when a child "gets" your work, then that's something to be proud of.
"An Alpine Biodome" by Geraint Evans was an interesting piece. Not something I would have on my wall at home, but well executed and an obvious example of work by someone who I imagine would do well in design and architecture.
"Near the Site" by David Fulford is, I think, worthy of a mention because it comes across as as storyboard. I couldn't quite make out the story, but I loved the colour scheme of a Sunday afternoon in the summer; all dull yellows and browns. Even without a story the pieces stand individually as photographs, as though someone has hurriedly painted them to capture a moment in time. There were 60 small canvas paintings in total, and another reason it bodes well with me is because the idea relates to one of my Negotiated Study projects.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that there are five extras this year, as the JMPP celebrates a new venture by opening the competition in Shanghai. My favourite of the five shortlisted was Li Weizhou's "Where are we from? Where will we go?" From a distance it looks like a large blank canvas with a tiny queue of people running across it, but close up, you realise that these tiny people all look completely different, and all appear to have personalities about them. I also loved this painting because of the medium used: ink on rice paper. That's new to me, but the effect is beautiful and works for the enigmatic piece.
So there were some really great pieces, including ones that I haven't mentioned, but the majority I will not dignify with a mention, because then they get free advertising. I honestly believe that if, as artists, we allow our craft to be exploited and tarnished this way, then our livelihood is going to fade very fast.
To finish off, I will put in a mention for this wonderful little blog post that kept me smiling, even when I felt done-over by the artwork thinking I don't have a chance. If you're worried that you may not pan-out as a full time artist, whatever your creative pursuit, have a gander at this list of ways to know if you truly are an artist. Hopefully it'll put some minds at ease.
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