Monday, October 06, 2008

UKCPS Annual International Open Exhibition 2008

The United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society's 7th Annual International Open Exhibition opened in Bristol on Friday and continues for the next three weeks. Later today, the exhibitions page of the UKCPS website will publish a link to a new page which displays all the works in the exhibition.

The UKCPS has done amazingly well in promoting both itself as a society and the exhibition. In 2008 there has been a 30% increase in entries and a 42% increase in the number of artists submitting work - and the standard of work apparently increased too!

In total the Exhibition attracted a total of 152 entries from 74 people in 11 different countries! Around a third of the works were then selected by the three jurors and have been hung in the exhibition.

Awards

Yesterday at the Private View, the works and artists who had won awards were announced.

I'd hoped to be posting photographs of both the Private View and the Award winners on this blog post today but unfortunately, due to a severe weather warning and torrential rain in southern England yesterday I decided to do the sensible thing and stay at home.

The three jurors who selected which works would be hung in this year's exhibition were:
Neil Murison then took over the task of selecting which works won which awards once the exhibition had been hung in the New Gallery at the Royal West of England Academy.

I'm going to refer you to the blog post on the UKCPS News blog for images of the award-winning works - see UKCPS Annual Exhibition 2008 - Award Winners. However below you can find out who won which Award.
  • Faber Castell Award for Best in Show - "Facing the Enemy" by Peter Höhsl (Austria)
  • UKCPS Award for Reserve Best in Show - "Black Watch" by Carol Bramley
  • The Presidents Award - 'Night's Agents' by Nicole Caulfield (New Hampshire, USA)
  • The Founder's Award for Best UK entry - 'Bad Hair Day' by Bev Lewis
  • The Staedtler Award - 'Green Plate' by Peter Woof
  • The Derwent Award - 'Me me, You me' by Kate Clarke
  • The Chairman's Award for Best Landscape - 'View of Torquay' by Galini Dimitriadou
  • Sophie's award for the most innovative entry - 'Self Portrait II' by Suzy Herbert
  • The Caran D'Ache Award - 'Watching and Waiting' by Margaret Edwards
  • The Lyra Award - 'Dry skull Ranch' by Elizabeth Riordon
Exhibition details

The United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society's 7th Annual International Open Exhibition is in the New Gallery of the Royal West of England Academy, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX and runs until Tuesday 28th October. It's open Monday to Saturday from 10.00am - 5.30pm. On Sunday it's open in the afternoon from 2.00-5.00pm. Last admission is half an hour before closing. Click here for a map and road and public transport directions to the Royal West of England Academy.

A curious tale

Finally - a curious tale which just goes to show you should never ever be disappointed if your work is not selected for an exhibition. Jurors always vary from exhibition to exhibition and while they may judge according to similar criteria there really is no accounting for taste.....which can lead to some odd results from time to time! We probably all have stories and here's another one.....

As readers will know I'm very friendly with Nicole Caulfield - who won the First Prize last year with Fiesta Orange and has won the President's award this year with Night Riders.

Last year Nicole developed two pieces which you can see on her website. Both are part of her paper series and are of red patent high heel shoes in a shoe box with tissue paper.

Night Agents
11" x 14" (28 x 36cm)
coloured pencil on pastelbord

copyright Nicole Caulfield

Along with other friends of Nicole, I've always been a huge fan of these two pieces. We've all had both of them 'tagged' as major competition pieces from the outset.

Accordingly:
  • Light Vanity was juried into the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe 111th Open Annual Exhibition (2007), New York, NY - which is a very prestigious show in New York for professional women artists (and is currently available at Chasen Galleries)
  • Night Agents was juried into the International Guild of Realism Juried Show 2007 at the Scottsdale Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona - and also the UKCPS Show 2008, plus it has now won the 3rd place President's Award.
However, Light Vanity failed to be juried into CPSA's 16th Annual Exhibition in Seattle this year!

Like I said - there's just no accounting for taste sometimes..........

3 comments:

  1. Sorry not to have met you at the show Katherine. It was such an inspiring experience (very humbling too!)and over all too quickly so thank you for the excellent write up and links!

    Btw, do I need permission to post photos of the space?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry not to meet you either Felicity - but "the feet" (which really don't like rain at all) just said "No"!

    You're familiar with the injunction about not copying images from the UKCPS website or the UKCPS blog. So, for example, my image of Nicole's work in my blog post on Monday was used with her permission.

    On the question of using your own photos of the exhibition I'd normally say contact the Exhibition Director but I know she's taking a well earned rest at present and that's not possible.

    If you are posting in an editorial sense (ie reviewing and commenting on the exhibition) then that's usually one of the times when images are allowed. Although I don't know if there were any notices up in the gallery saying photography not allowed.

    For my exhibition reviews I either get detailed images of individual pictures as part of a press pack for the exhibition (ie authorised images) or I get permission from the gallery. The galleries know my work (and follow this blog) and let me take general photographs of the exhibition because they know that they're used in a responsible way.

    The guidelines I use are that the photos are used to get a sense of the exhibition rather than any individual pictures. Where I do use a picture of an individual work (such as the one used on Sunday) I always get the permission of the artist. I also only ever post images which are 72 dpi and no side longer than 500 pixels. I go smaller if the work is 'too detailed'.

    Felicity - you can post a photo of my work if that helps! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Katherine. I did see others taking photos and didn't see a notice but that's not to say it wasn't there! I may just ask on the group site, otherwise I'll play safe. I didn't take individual shots as I was so amazed by the work I completely forgot to take any photos until I left and then ran back in to take some very quickly!

    ReplyDelete

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