My head has been buried in the sand with competition deadlines for the past few weeks. There are four I want to enter int he next couple of months, and so I am working towards creating new works for them all. I'll probably need to submit a few older works too.
Competitions can really be so disheartening, they're expensive to enter (especially when you have to pay them back to back in the same month!) and the chances of actually getting in are so small. Many of them make some very conceptual choices when it comes to their selected artists, and to be honest this year I won't apply to some major ones because I know I simply don't stand a chance. I'd rather focus my energy on some that I actually feel a kinship to, and for the first time I read all of their blurbs about how they judge and what they are looking for.
This year I discovered the Luxembourg Art Prize on Facebook (thanks to being connected to so many artists around the world) and when I read what they were looking for, I literally jolted: I had never come across this type of language in the arts in the UK, and I feel a real connection to what they are saying, and it feels so refreshing to me.
"For example, the Committee may be sensitive to the following points: the originality of the work, technical mastery, coherence of the work, freshness, novelty, historical continuity, the artistic, literary, historical, scientific or philosophical references in your work, the message conveyed, the poetry that emerges from the work.
The Committee hopes to find works that have been produced in a unique moment of grace experienced by the artist at the time of their creation. These magical creative moments are what make a work unique and unlike any other."
For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful that I actually stand a chance. Luxembourg here we go!!