Should #Banbury Commemorate #Sir Terry Frost ?

Sir Terry Frost's creativity during his Banbury phase (from 1963 until 1974) includes some of his most creative and influential works. Yet take a walk around Banbury and you will find no evidence of the contribution he made as one of the UK's forerunners of abstract painting. Terry’s own account of why he chose to live in Banbury was that while travelling south he paused to munch a bunch of grapes while sitting on the wall outside the striking parish church, and decided there and then to settle in the town. So what better way to preserve the memory of a special man - or should I say "special artist" than to commission a bronze statue of Terry sat on a wall facing the parish church or a blue plaque on his former home!

International Fine Art Competition - Have a Go!

The 26th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition

Agora Gallery,proudly hosts the annual Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, a renowned art contest that is juried by prominent museum curators and art experts. It is a great opportunity for the juror-selected artists to gain exposure by exhibiting their work in the famed Chelsea Art Gallery District (New York) as well as be part of online and print promotions.

The Chelsea International Fine Art Competition is open to visual artists from anywhere in the world and at all stages in their career. In previous years the juror has selected artists working in painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, mixed media and print.

Awards with a total value of $38,000 will be distributed to selected artists. The awards are chosen to help artists advance their careers and to maximize their exposure to collectors and the New York art scene. They include participation in the renowned Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition in the heart of Chelsea, New York, review by an art critic, cash prizes and exclusive internet promotion.


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FIRST DISTANCE LEARNING#MA IN#FINE ART

Post-graduate Fine Art qualification now within reach for more artists

From January 2011, the Open College of the Arts (OCA), an educational charity founded in 1987
to widen access to creative arts education, will offer Europe’s first MA in Fine Art by distance learning. This is a period of significant development for OCA: just six months ago the college announced its first specialist degrees at undergraduate level, in painting and photography.

The MA in Fine Art is OCA’s first step into postgraduate provision, and has been validated by the University for the Creative Arts, a new partner for OCA. All other OCA qualifications are validated by Buckinghamshire New University.The course offers an opportunity for students for whom an MA in Fine Art would previously have been out of reach to work towards a post-graduate qualification at the same time as earning a living. People who for a variety of reasons may not previously have been able to study at postgraduate level can now do so, with the convenience of being based at home.

MA Fine Art students with a less academic background can opt for exclusively practice-based outcomes, while others may prefer a substantial written component. All students are required to have a dedicated studio space and internet access, and are expected to visit galleries and museums throughout the duration of the course.

Check it out by visting the OCA website at www.oca-uk.com

Giclee art gallery

The main goal of theSTUDIO (Artfusion) is to help support the artist community, by providing an affordable fine art digital printing service and promoting clients art work. Therefore, we are pleased to announce an exciting new development.

We are currently in the process of creating an online art gallery to sell giclee art. Combined with our proposed innovative and creative marketing initiatives this will allow an artist's work to be profiled professionally and help to find buyers for their work.

We will keep you posted!

Selling Paintings: Which Subjects Sell Best?

All painters know that some subjects sell better than others. Whether these are subjects you want to paint and whether you should be painting specifically for the market are two thorny questions. Only you can decide whether you want (or need) to paint with a view to selling as much as possible, or whether you can focus on painting subjects you choose. Of course, if your favourite subject happens to be the same as the market's, you're sitting pretty.


According to a Art Business Today survey in 2003*, these were the Top 10 best-selling
subjects for paintings in the UK:


1. Traditional landscapes.
2. Local views.
3. Modern or semi-abstract landscapes.
4. Abstracts.
5. Dogs.
6. Figure studies (excluding nudes).
7. Seascapes, harbour, and beach scenes.
8. Wildlife.
9. Impressionistic landscapes.
10. Nudes.

How should I price my art?

"How should I price my art?" is a perennial question asked by many artists especially those starting out. theSTUDIO has written an invaluable guide for artists and craftspeople who want to explore different approaches to pricing their work. It unpicks what costs need to be recovered, what factors influence the setting of prices as well as detailing different approaches and different views on how well these work. Want to know more - then simply follow this BLOG and all will be revealed.

Blot on the #Oxfordshire landscape?

Robert Wagener’s painting Menorah is a powerful 20th century depiction of Christ’s crucifixion set against the backdrop of Didcot Power Station, Oxfordshire. Named “the seventh-worst eyesore in Britain” by readers of Beautiful Britain magazine and a recent target of environmental activists, the Power Station has often been an object of controversy.

However, for some, and I include myself amongst their number, find a particularly strong aesthetic and power in the beauty of such monumental urban structures. Indeed as the late Peter Levi, Oxford Professor of Poetry once said “The power station at Didcot behind the crucifixion is like the most beautiful cathedral, but the geometry of distance makes it as strange as it is passionate and fresh”.

I was therefore excited to hear that a group of local Oxfordshire artists, collectively known as Alchemie are in the process of planning an art exhibition that will draw inspiration from the chimney and cooling towers that have been a dominant feature of the skyline. It is an exhibition that I am sure will prove popular both with local residents and the wider Oxfordshire community.

Gaining a Strong Reputation

Based in Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire artist Harriet Gosling is gaining a strong reputation as a still life painter. After leaving school Harriet completed an art foundation course at the college of Art and Technology at High Wycombe and then went on to study for three years at Studio Cecil-Graves in Florence Italy.

Her luminous paintings of Oxfordshire wildlife and her intimate still life paintings of fruit and other inanimate everyday objects are much sought after by collectors. Harriet recently commissioned theSTUDIO to reproduce a number of her paintings as limited edition prints. With only a few exceptions, they were printed at their actual size. In each print Gosling says “ you can see the painterly brush strokes, sensual textures and deft painting handling that I have worked so hard to acquire”.

Harriet paints from her studio where she lives with her husband and daughter.

Society in Crisis.

When first viewing Oxfordshire artist Barbara Gorayska’s newly completed work one is instantly reminded of George #Grosz’s The City. Its imagery attacks the viewer like a vivid nightmare. However, unlike Grosz this is not a vision coloured by the trauma of combat in the First World War, but a World War of a different kind, a bloodless war - a War of Recession or Depression that is striking every corner of the globe. Barbara conveys to the viewer that indefinite progress and indefinite prosperity (which is the result of the former) is an insidious myth that is eating away at our souls. Indeed, a predominant theme in Barbara's work is moral decay.

The repulsive caricatures and moral ambiguity of the contrasting imagery on display both disturbs and fascinates. As the paintings focal point - a demon. His hands gesture to the viewer to enter the scene, his face grinning expectantly. This is an image of a society that has got too used to their ever increasing comforts. This is clearly seen in the figure of a well dressed man, a banker or possibly a politician. The figure at first appears to be pursued by a disaffected and vengefull mob, but further investigation reveals an equally disturbing narrative – that of sociteies souls being led into the open jaws of the beast – a metaphor for the myth?

The work has many messages for us and one of them is to get a grip on reality; to realise that we bought into a dirty myth of selfishness and greed; to reflect upon the meaning of our short existence. To value important gifts like our health, imagination, creativity and our laughter. Though Barbara’s work is left largely to personal interpretation, it is hard to imagine any who view the painting to be undisturbed by its imagery and overshadowed by a sense of a society in crisis.

An opportunity for #artists and #gallery owners

Artists and gallery owners have the opportunity and the obligation to listen to what is being said about them and their artists by the community of people who represent their customers. There is an opportunity for artists/gallery owners to listen, connect, share and engage their customers using the social web. And chances are, if they are not currently engaging their customers in social communications, one of their competitors soon will be.

Any artist or gallery owner interested in social media should definitely attend one of theSTUDIO's forthcoming sessions, with expert perspectives on subjects ranging from small business management and art marketing, to social media for artists and more. This year theSTUDIO Education Series will offer artists and dealers the tools they need to succeed in today’s rapidly changing fine art marketplace. In addition the Series will cover critical areas such as selling art to corporations, hospitals, and designers; recent changes in the global marketplace; trends in home art decorating; and newest technologies for reproduction, archiving and art licensing.

50% of the booths display giclee.

In the UK many art collectors and the buying public at large still buy originals. So most art trade shows and art fairs are primarily for original works and not giclee reproductions.

Since the main commercial center for giclee is in the US, it will come as no surprise to hear that if you are a giclee artist or giclee publisher (printer and/or publisher), then you want to be in a US exhibition. This is why the ArtExpo in New York attracts artists from around the world and where more than 50% of the booths display giclee.

However, a giclee exhibition is also a guaranteed place to see good examples of unprofessional digitisation. One thing I can’t help but notice when I walk around and inspect the giclee images in each booth are how many are nicely printed but poorly digitised. When I ask who did the photography or scanning of the original image I am always told, “it is the best photographer in my area…” In other words, artists are taking their paintings to the best wedding or commercial photographer, who simply is not an expert in doing giclee photography. These local photographers are competent shooting the annual school portraits, local architecture, and their other specialities, but simply lack the specialised equipment to handle giclee digitisation.

The giclee process is not just the printing it is also the quality of the photography and post capture process.

Art Project

Google has announced its new Art Project, in collaboration with 17 international art museums, to bring a new world of art online. Featuring collections from the Tate Britain, Museo Reina Sofia and Van Gogh Museum, Google has used its Streetview technology to help bring the museums to life.
Users can wander around the featured galleries and museums and view 1,061 artworks. There are also 17 special gigapixel images – one for each participating institution's most treasured piece, allowing viewers to zoom right in to brush-stroke levels of detail.

Take a tour