Potential.

Life is incredibly busy right now! My art agent is coming to select paintings for the Kings Hill Project on Wednesday. The selection will be awaiting approval from the people at KHP, and I hope my work ends up going on display. But it's one step nearer to exhibiting. It's also very positive as it means I will clear some space and have a place to start the large canvas I'm about to stretch up.
I have found two more galleries which are interested in viewing my paintings, so I will be preparing the images and my statement, and emailing them this week. I'm also submitting two paintings to the Cork Street Open exhibition, again an online submission. Last year I was turned down, but I feel more confident about the paintings I'm submitting this year. Of course, it all depends on the selectors.
Then at the end of this month I have to deliver my watercolour to the Llewellyn Alexander gallery in London, for the 'Not The Royal Academy Exhibition.'
I've also found out that I can publish my Cyprus novel on Kindle, once I have formatted it and prepared it digitally and met their requirements. I have tried to get my novel published, but nowadays Publishing Houses are not the only option. The internet has opened up many more opportunities for artists and writers. It has immense creative potential and means that there will be a wider range of talent on display.
So, I am approaching this week with a lot of optimism and energy.
('Square Choices,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 45cm by 45cm, 2012)

It Goes With The Job!

I'm still waiting! Silence is never good. From past experience, when you are accepted for a show, the answer usually comes quickly. In this case, the selection is not up to my agent, and it's some comfort to know that she likes my work enough to put me forward  for this exhibition. It's often a case of selectors choosing work that 'fits' together within a theme or style. When I lived in Cyprus, I helped set up shows, so know how important the positioning of paintings can be. Also, in exhibitions which are narrowed down to a few artists, it's important that the works complement each other.
It all goes with the job, of course! Recently I read an interview with an artist I admire, and I was jolted by his remark that if you weren't getting at least 15 rejections in a year, you weren't trying hard enough! Being restricted by time and commitments is a familiar cry, one I made on reading this, but you have to keep sending off applications, waiting, and trying over and over. To any other artists reading this, who are feeling disheartened, my advice is 'don't give up!'
So, with this in mind, I found some more links to galleries on my friends' Facebook pages, and re-wrote my art statement (a good thing to do regularly, as one's work evolves), and photographed my latest work. Three more applications will go off this week. Only another ten until I've filled the year's quota.
('Symphony of Choices,' 2012.  Oil and acrylic on canvas, 80cm by 40cm)

Waiting.

It's been a tough week. My husband went away to Cyprus for a fortnight, to visit his sick mother. I told myself that I could fill the loss of his presence by painting more hours than I already do. Then my arm injury flared up, causing intense, relentless pain. I couldn't paint, I couldn't even wash the dishes. Most depressingly, I was unable to stretch up 2 new, large canvases that I was longing to start. Drawings on scraps of paper and envelope backs are scattered around my flat, waiting to unfold onto canvas in glorious technicolour! But the positive aspect (and I always try to see the positive), was that a troublesome painting I was forced to put aside suddenly shouted out at me a few days later that it was finished!
So with copious quantities of painkillers in my system, I trawled the internet for potential galleries. I found a number of new galleries in the UK to approach, and (most exciting) several New York galleries that will look at your work and hold it on file, for future group shows. It's so much easier to communicate with galleries nowadays, and to send images, and this week I will be applying to all the galleries on my list. Sometimes I believe that my colours will fit the States better than they do here, as there seems to be a tendency towards a dry, grey realism. I have given up applying to local galleries, as inevitably my cards go in the bin, no matter how polite the owner is towards me. Generally, colour is not seen as a 'serious' subject, but merely as adornment.
Now I'm waiting to hear if my work has been accepted for the Kings Hill Project, another corporate show. I'm really praying for this one, as it would be great exposure, and their website would have links to mine. My agent asked me recently if I have done any new work, since the Gainsborough House show in December. I have around 18 new paintings you can select from, I told her. I'm checking my Blackberry every hour, hoping to find a confimation email from her.
('Permission,'  Oil and acrylic on canvas, 45cm by 45cm.  The painting I had to put aside.)

The Art of Showing.

As more shops and companies close daily, galleries too are affected by the economic uncertainty and it becomes harder in the UK to show your work, if you are still an 'emerging' artist. But I have begun applying again to London galleries, ever optimistic that I will find gallery representation. It has to happen very soon! I need homes for the endless stacks of canvases that we manoeuvre around daily. Our space resembles a labyrinth. I'm always saying to someone, 'Be careful, that picture's wet,' as trousers or skirts hover in front of lines of new paintings.

My work was viewed by an art agent a year ago, and in December she chose 11 paintings for a show in Crawley, at Gainsborough House, for DMH Stallard (Solicitors). I've begun painting predominantly on canvas (which I stretch myself) as they can be hung without framing, which is so terribly expensive and has prevented me from taking part in many shows. My agent had suggested I stop painting on boards, as she could collect canvases at short notice. She took the paintings that day, and hung them. The great advantage about this kind of show is that people in such a busy environment will pass your work every day.

My husband Thanos had never seen my work on show before in the UK, and we made the journey to Crawley with some excitement. One of my large paintings greeted us in the main foyer of the very plush, large office complex. As we wandered around, my paintings lined the corridors, decorated the large conference room, and were dotted around several offices. It was a perfect environment, and the lighting was great. Two other artists shared the space, but my work alone adorned that conference room.

The show was on for a month, and I agreed with my agent that next time she takes work, she will get a larger vehicle to carry my 2 metre canvases. Three huge, colourful canvases in the conference room would have had maximum impact.

(Photos: My paintings on show - Thanos with some paintings, the conference room, me in the foyer.)

Not The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

This year, for the first time in 10 years, I didn't enter work for the prestigious Royal Academy Summer Show. I have been adapting to the early days of marriage, and finding a rhythm to life here in the UK with my husband, and I missed the deadline for applications. But I remembered to send photos of some paintings to the Llewellyn Alexander gallery, for their annual Not the Royal Academy Exhibition. My photos arrived one day before the deadline. I waited anxiously for The Call - would I be turned down this year? We like to think our work improves year by year, but there is no certainty.

The gallery called me last week. I could hardly contain my delight as I heard that they had chosen a watercolour for this summer exhibition. It will be my 10th year of taking part. The exhibition generally shows paintings rejected from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, but you can also apply by sending photos of your work to the gallery, providing you have entered the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition at some point. It is a Salon des Refuses, and a boost to artists whose confidence has been knocked by rejection from the famous Summer Exhibition. Though I have filled in the RA forms and submitted work 9 times, I have never been accepted. (I have written about this rejection - Blog entry, 13th June 2009)

The painting I will be showing is one I made in situ. Some artists believe that your work should stick consistently to one theme or style, and show a definite evolution within chosen parameters, but I believe that you should follow your instincts, and never try to define yourself. I combine painting in the land with painting from my imagination or memory, back in the studio. I believe that my response to, and love of, landscape feeds into the colour compositions I feel such passion about creating indoors. My watercolour brings back memories of the way that the hedgerows suddenly overflow with blossom in April, and a day when I sat by some fields last Spring and attempted to catch this explosion of white. I realised it was my last Spring as an unmarried woman.
('Blossom.' 16ins by 12ins, watercolour and gouache.)

Spring Fever

As Spring unfolds day by day, painting ideas are bursting into my mind at fever pitch. In 10 days I stretched up 8 canvases, primed them and scrubbed on a thin layer of acrylic colour - usually a grey, lilac or pale brown. I like to work into a colour, as it gives me something definite to react against, and often I allow the colour to become mottled or uneven as I tend to carve my shapes out of this colour. But Spring fever threw white onto my fresh canvases and I'm working directly into wet white paint. It gets pushed around with my biggest palette knife, softened with my fingers, and scribbled on with all manner of brushes. The energies of Spring translate themselves into paint, and I believe that even the most abstract of artists are affected by this sudden flow of light and splatters of colour.

I always work at a restless, fever pitch, as I squeeze my painting hours between being a Carer for a disabled child. I manage to paint between 20 to 25 hours a week, and draw at any hour of the day. My time as a Carer tends to occupy the early mornings and evenings and nights. The ideal is to be a full-time artist, and I have just put my work for sale on several websites as prints and originals, and updated my own website with a view to selling work there. Self-marketing also has to be fitted into my day, as I search the internet for exhibition opportunities and join new websites.

The painting 'A Landscape of Choices' refers to the choices made about paint, marks, and colour, and is about my inner landscape, and reactions to the paint. The traces of my choices are left on the picture. I wanted the painting to suggest the passage of time - the time between each brushmark and choice, the choices we make in our lives.

('A Landscape of Choices,' Oil and acrylic on board, 91cm by 61cm, 2012)

Van Gogh's Artist Community

Van Gogh always dreamed of creating an artists' community, where artists could work together and exchange their ideas. Unfortunately, his dream was never realised, and one attempt to live with Gauguin and share a studio had disastrous results. I was thinking that he might have found social networking sites invaluable, if he lived now. I am an avid Facebook user. It has opened up a very wide connection with artists around the world, and given me great support and inspiration. Most of my 900-plus friends are artists, ranging from very figurative painting to totally abstract, and we comment on each other's paintings, give tips, and join in discussions on aesthetic issues, new work, exhibitions, and ideas.

For anyone not familiar with Facebook, you can create albums of work and your friends can leave comments. So in theory you can end up with hundreds of comments below each photo, from all your friends. You can read comments left by other artists on other artists' work, and respond or debate with them within that comment 'thread.' I have learned from more from this than I can ever say. Technical and aethetic merits are almost always discussed, and many of these people are international artists, curators, gallery owners, so their comments are always very focused. Over 2 years I have gradually been able to make friends with the friends of artists I really admire, and now I'm part of a very active online community. I post new work every week, as do many of my friends, and I look forward to their reactions. I'm always very excited when my closest artist friends post new work, and join in the discussion on it - and this way gain new friends, as anyone reading the comments can send you a friend request. When one of my favourite artists leaves a positive comment on my latest painting, I approach my canvases with renewed faith in myself. Artists are rarely nasty, their comments are always helpful and enable you to see aspects you had never considered before.

The quality of the artwork is incredibly high! I know artists whose work puts the Royal Academicians to shame! Some of my friends are headed for international recognition, and all are very generous and supportive. Being an artist can be very isolating, and like many of my friends, I am not living in a major city. But this exchange makes you feel part of a large, evolving circle, you can get exhibition invitations through it (galleries check out artist's work), and best of all, it keeps your standards high! I believe that Van Gogh would have greatly appreciated this kind of intense worldwide communication, all at the click of a mouse. I enter artist's lives, studios, aspirations, vision, in a matter of a few minutes of page navigation.

('Looking Through,' Oil and acrylic on canvas, 14ins by 18ins, 2012)