I'm so pleased to announce that my painting 'Check Your Travel' has been awarded the ING Discerning Eye Cityscape Prize as part of the 2020 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition.
It's the first time I've entered the open call and I made the selection with it and another painting entitled ‘Look Both Ways’. Normally at the Mall Galleries, this year the show is online, due to our old friend Covid-19. To view the whole ING Discerning Eye 2020 Exhibition online (to buy these works and art from many other artists) click here. Thanks to all the judges involved, but especially to David Remfry RA and Mervyn Metcalf for selecting my works to be shown in their curated areas of the exhibition.
The scenes I’ve painted are both informed by the view from the twelfth floor of the iconic tower of No.1 Croydon, south London (also known by many other names: NLA Tower, The 50p Building, The Thru’penny bit Building). Artworks tend to show the architecture of this Croydon landmark itself, but I thought that the view of the streets below more interesting in this case.
I love the riot of marks, shapes and colours that are drawn across London’s roads, always with a purpose to inform, warn or highlight things but I don’t think people appreciate their aesthetic qualities too. There are probably more litres of paint poured and drawn across the tarmac that any artist would use in a lifetime. To accompany the barriers and markings on the street, there are often instructions telling people what to do (in a variety of helpful but serious tones of voice).
In a world where the delivery of data and information is seemingly never ending, even the physical spaces we travel through in cities, and walk on, can contain commands or points of information for us.
Look Both Ways
To go straight to my artworks in the exhibition, use these two links: Check Your Travel and Look Both Ways.
To view the pieces in the context of each of the selectors’ rooms, alongside their other chosen artists, click on either David Remfry RA or Mervyn Metcalf.
The twelfth floor of No.1 Croydon
“The ING Discerning Eye is an annual show of small-scale artworks renowned for its commitment to championing emerging artists, its democratic selection process, and its unique curatorial approach.
A panel of six prominent figures from the art world - two artists, two collectors and two critics - select small artworks in any medium for the annual exhibition, curating six shows within the whole.
This year, the exhibited artworks were selected by artists Dale Lewis and David Remfry RA, collectors Beverley Knight MBE and Mervyn Metcalf, as well as critics Jo Baring and Tabish Khan.
For the first time in its history, the exhibition will be open online for six weeks on www.ingdeexhibition.org, running until Christmas and the New Year, and providing the perfect opportunity to share the gift of art with friends and family or treat yourself to a new piece of artwork for the holidays. ”