Jackson’s Open Art Prize Longlist Announced!

If you are interested in an artwork the artist’s name is on the work and you might be able to find them on the Internet.
We will be interviewing some of the artists on our blog over the next few months so there will be website links for those artists. I think next time we should have everyone give a link.
If you are interested in a particular work please email competitions@jacksonsart.co.uk and we can put you in touch with the artist.

Hi Ben
The long list reflects well the assortment of work we received. There are many paintings in the selection.
It is always going to be hard to judge work based on a digital photo.

Hi Cassandra.
Thanks, we are very pleased!
We might do categories next year but have not created them for this year.

Hi Carol, glad to hear you enjoyed the art. We are quite happy with the selection.

About the so-called ‘art speak’ you mention –

Many people dismiss an artist’s words as ‘art speak’ with an implication that the words are either pretending to be greater than they are or are outright trickery and lies to see how much the artist can fool you.

When someone tries to use words to talk about difficult ideas I always give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume they are trying to find words to articulate their ideas. After all, if you could say it in words why would you go to all that trouble to paint it (or sculpt or dance)? To paraphrase the saying: ‘Writing about art is like dancing about architecture’. Not all visual artists are great with words, and they are often trying to communicate something they can’t put into words.

Another thing to consider: I have found that most of the time someone calls some words ‘art speak’ those words are actually intellectual and hard to understand, because they are talking about big ideas with big words. If a physicist talks about big ideas and you don’t understand you assume it’s your fault that you don’t understand. But if an artist writes something intellectual that is difficult to understand people call it ‘art speak’. Artists can be well-educated intellectuals who use long words to talk about big ideas. If you don’t understand what someone has written, maybe you just don’t understand it. Maybe it’s over your head.

Also artists will have jargon amongst themselves, like plumbers or physicists, as any profession does. For people who don’t understand those words there are plenty of art theory and history books they can read if they don’t wish to attend an art school.

And finally, not all artists see it as a vocation. For artists who see it as a hobby and their art as decoration for the wall, there is no ‘big idea’ behind their work. They make lovely things, find relaxation and enjoy themselves, and that makes the world a better place. The mansion of art has many rooms. But don’t forget that some artists are trying to achieve something more, and their work may have many layers of meaning or a context, and knowing that may give the viewer a richer experience. That has to be good, right?

About the work in this competition- As an international competition we have hundreds of artists for whom English is not their first language. (But still their English is better than my Lithuanian.) It could be possible that some of the difficulty you are having with the text is down to a bit of a translation issue.

Oh, and wonderfully in this competition we have a few artists who are also poets! Poetry, as another art form, might add to your discomfort with the text.