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In the Shadows Of, acrylic on canvas by University College Falmouth student Jayne Smith |
It’s life drawing: but not as we’ve come to know it
Four years ago, a mystery art
collector offered a £10,000 prize to encourage students to get back to basics. An exhibition at the
Boundary Gallery shows how the scheme is starting to bear fruit, writes Dan Carrier
THE MYSTERY art collector was so annoyed by the lack of basic draughtsmanship in contemporary art he contacted the Boundary Gallery in Swiss Cottage, raided his bank account and offered a £10,000 prize to students who focus on figurative art.
This week saw the fourth Figurative Art Prize won jointly by a student at the Royal College of Art and another from Loughborough University.
Both are portraits – and the type of work that is all too rarely seen from todays art students, according to the secretive sponsor and the gallery’s owner, Agi Katz.
Mrs Katz said the idea for a figurative competition came about after the benefactor began bemoaning the quality of new artists coming through.
Artist Billy Childish, former boyfriend of Tracy Emin, the enfant terrible of modern art, has also admitted his feelings that artists working today often create imaginative works that require little skill to actually produce. He was called a “Stuckist” by Emin, because she believed he was stuck in the past.
Not so, says Mrs Katz.
“The sponsor believes in encouraging young artists,” she says.
All that can be revealed about the benefactor’s identity is that he is a serious art collector who lives in Regent’s Park and is worried about the skills art students are being furnished with. He wants them to be able to express themselves and counter the long-term trend for students to move away from figurative skills.
“For years I have felt figurative art is disappearing,” states Mrs Katz. “There is very little left. People at art schools are no longer taught how to draw.”
Four years ago, Mrs Katz and the mystery sponsor discussed what – as a gallery owner and collector – they could do it about this trend.
“He decided to put up his own money for a prize, and we have seen over 100 entries this year, all of a good standard,” she says.
She recalls how 18 years ago she travelled to the prestigious Glasgow School of Art to attend a diploma show.
“I saw people in their fourth year who simply could not draw,” explains Mrs Katz.
“This is something I felt was wrong.”
She saw students deciding to produce abstract and minimalist works – encouraged by tutors – and this, in turn, meant there was a lack of basic painting skills on display.
It riled the gallery owner. “The [abstract] approach does not matter, as long as this way of students expressing themselves is done as a result of experimenting and searching and having done some training, and then eliminating things they are not interested in,” she says. “But this is not what is happening in our art schools. Students no longer go to life classes and are not being taught their craft.”
Then, before the prize was offered, a discussion with a renowned tutor at a leading London art college underlined why Mrs Katz felt the quality of artists was declining.
“He was quite hostile when I suggested the need for figurative training,” she recalls. “He said ‘Do life classes? What on earth for?’ He said he didn’t think draughtsmanship was important.”
This is a sorry state of affairs, says the gallery owner, and she hopes the annual Boundary Gallery art prize will help.
“As a young artist, you can’t know exactly what you want to do – you have to start with the basics and work from there,” she says.
With more than 100 entries coming from right across the UK for this year’s exhibition, they whittled them down to just 29, all of which are on display at the gallery.
They chose two joint winners: Ruth Murray of the Royal College of Art and Rhiannon Fraser from Loughborough University and a number of runners up.
Agi said: “We had some strong entries and the prize is attracting good quality work.”
• The Boundary Gallery Figurative Art Prize is at Boundary Gallery,
116 Boundary Road, NW8 until May 3. 020 7624 1126
www.boundarygallery.com |
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