Just on the offchance, I entered some of my urban watercolours for a couple of comps. Now, I dont usually do competitions, because I strongly feel they do little to encourage innovation, usually artists just produce things they think will appeal to the judges. I also dont have a huge amount of self-confidence or influential friends.
Anyway, in the first instance, art competitions being bland and uninspiring, I was right. My work did not get selected for the Royal Watercolour Society shortlist. On the shortlist was a predictable amount of flowers, landscapes, and abstract "autobiographical" scrawls. One or two interesting portaits. Certainly nothing to rock the establishment! What did I expect?
A show that gave me a slightly more positive reaction, at least to start with, was "Pumped Up Kicks" by the Young Curators in Leeds. They were very enthusiastic when I sent them some jpegs, saying it was just what they were looking for, and would let me know. This was some weeks ago, then yesterday I got another e-mail saying they were overwhelmed with work and mine didn't fit in. "Didn't fit in". Story of my life!
I bet the work there is pretty predictable too.. let me see, grainy photographs of yoof in streets, some tag graffiti.. I'll have a look online but I bet it will all look like a First Year BA show.
I dont mean to be bitter and twisted, in fact I'm quite chirpy today, but it all gets so tedious when you try to get in there with something a bit different that you believe in and worked hard with.
