I’m a prizewinner! A few weeks ago I was
informed that I, alongside two others, including my close artist friend Andrew
Smith, had had our respected artwork selected as prizewinners in Stourbridge’s
General Office Gallery’s Winter Open exhibition. I haven’t won a prize since I
won the History Prize in my first year at Secondary School 40 years ago (I’m
afraid it was a slow descent for my school career after that...) so I’m really
pleased, not least because the exhibition was judged ‘blind’ by three notable
judges, artist Jo Naden, Glenn Howells architect, and the photographer/artist
John Myers, who is an artist I really admire and whose ideas of the ‘banal and
boring’ have influenced some of my own work. And the prize? To take part in a group
exhibition at General Office with the other two prizewinners later in the year,
which is exciting.
In May I’m also exhibiting at the esteemed Ikon Gallery in Birmingham for the first (and probably last!) time in an exhibition, ‘Ikon For Artists’ aimed at celebrating and supporting artists during the continuing Covid pandemic who are based in Birmingham. All artworks are for sale, and I’ve seen on social media that many of the local artists I know and whose work I like will also be exhibiting, so that’s great to be showing alongside some of these for the first time. I hope I get to meet some of them too but I’m not sure about the Covid restrictions and whether the exhibition will have a private view or not (I suspect not). I’ll be exhibiting a painting I made last year at the start of lockdown, ‘The Green Door’.
I’m also trying to plan a possible two
exhibitions with several of the artists that participated in this year’s Sky
Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2021 competition in the heats at West Wycombe
Park. It has been agreed that we can exhibit in the National Trust House
located in the grounds of the estate, but we are just looking more closely at
the logistics of it all, and we are also looking at other venues in the
Buckinghamshire area that may be interested in holding an exhibition of our
work on the back of the our connection with the TV competition (not show). If
this comes off we hope to present the exhibitions in late June/early July. It
will be so great to meet the artists I worked alongside in my own heat, but
also the other artists from episode 4, without the stress of the competition
hanging over us and hopefully get to know them all a bit better. I’m really
looking forward to it.
I feel really upbeat about all of these upcoming events. After a terrible year of cancelled exhibitions, isolation, lockdowns etc it’s great to be part of some exciting exhibitions that sees me, and all the other artists, back out in the world again and showing work to expectant audiences (including myself).
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