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Month: August 2025

Expert Advice on Open Calls for Artists

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has prompted me to offer some advice on Open Calls. The response letter carries a lot of weight for many artists, but it’s not the only open call out there to consider. We are going to look at the benefits of entering open calls, researching and choosing wisely, advice for your application, and healthy acceptance of the outcome.     Expert Advice on Open Calls for Artists   Why Enter An Open Call? An open call is an invitation for any artist to have their work considered for an exhibition, residency, prize, or grant. In this article, we’re going to focus on open call exhibitions, which are a smart way to get your work seen by more eyes, including potential new collectors and galleries. You can also meet new artists to connect with and gain experience in getting your work exhibition ready. There is nothing like seeing your work out in the wild, curated in a space alongside other artists. You can use these opportunities to invite people to come and see your work. For example, an artist I work with had a painting at the Mall Galleries, in London, and she hosted a coffee …

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Janie George: Insistent Colour

Janie George won Andrew Torr’s Choice Award in Jackson’s Art Prize this year with her work Pine Cone. In this interview, she discusses her practice of writing to help realise an idea, the perfection of indecision, and turning to ceramics to slow her down. Above image: Janie in her studio     Josephine: Could you tell us about your artistic background? Janie: I owe a lot to my mother who was very good at making things and had a good sense of style. We were a large family and had little money. Everything was pretty much handmade and hand-grown. She taught me how to sew, cook, and garden. She also bought me a sketchbook to record the wild flowers that I found. That experience of drawing to identify and know things was the beginning for me. I still draw things gathered from the fields. I was lucky in my art college experience; it was a more formal time, but people were pretty nurturing and kind. Although I paint now, I studied printmaking at college and lithography in particular. It was how I learnt to be very precise about colour. After college, I had longish periods without a studio. However, when …

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Artist Insights: Richard Ayodeji Ikhide

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide is a London-based artist, who works with large-scale watercolours and drawing. He visited Jackson’s Studio to discuss his practice, and how he seeks the intangible qualities of the human experience through movement and colour in his work.   Artist Insights: Richard Ayodeji Ikhide     Contents 0:00 “I’m trying to dispel these hierarchies within painting.” 0:10 “The marks I’m making are quite intuitive.” 1:12 Introduction 1:30 “Having lived half of my life back home in Lagos, and then living half of my life in England, you get this amalgamation of different experiences.” 3:14 “My approach to painting with watercolours is unconventional.” 4:04 “There’s a long history of sequences and sequential narrative, which has evolved into forms like film, animation, and video games.” 5:26 “For me, drawing is largely about problem solving.” 6:56 “There’s something amazing about a squirrel brush on hot press paper – the way it moves and glides across the surface is like a chef’s kiss. It’s just incredible.” 8:50 “There is no mysticism behind the way the piece takes shape.” 9:09 “That pure joy of making a line, or painting, or using colour, you get lost in the flow of the process.” 10:40 “You’re …

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