Fertility Figure IV and Fertility Figure I Tim Shaw RA Bronze, 2008 (Installation shot from 'By Popular Demand', Mall Galleries, 2017)
Artist Interviews, JOPP 2017

Anna Bromwich, Art Consultant and JOPP 2017 Judge

16th March 2017 by   0
We are thrilled to have Anna Bromwich on the Jackson’s Open Painting Prize Judging panel. Now in its second year, The Jackson’s Open Painting Prize exists to recognise and appreciate original, 2-dimensional fine art works in any painting or drawing media.
Anna Bromwich is an art consultant based at Mall Galleries, London, where she is responsible for sourcing, commissioning and renting art for private and corporate clients. She curates and co-manages Mall Galleries’ online gallery, Buy Art | Buy Now, and curated the exhibition By Popular Demand, a survey of the visitors and selectors choice awardees from the last eight years of The Columbia Threadneedle Prize. Anna has worked for a number of commercial galleries in London and Paris and has taught in the French architecture university ENSAPB.

 

Anna Bromwich

Anna Bromwich

Lisa: Can you tell us what a typical day is like for an art consultant at the Mall Galleries?

 

Anna: There is no typical day!  My job encompasses commissioning, renting and sourcing art on behalf of private and corporate clients so I may be talking through a brief with an artist or building portfolios for clients.  I’m also very involved in the curation and management of Mall Galleries’ online gallery, so I’m constantly looking for and reaching out to artists for that. I have also curated exhibitions and events for Mall Galleries, including By Popular Demand, and the series of artist talks, Commissioning Conversation, so my day may be absorbed in the creative or logistical aspects of that. Lastly we run a fantastic graduate show called FBA Futures and if you catch me on a day in summer, I might be trawling the graduate shows for promising student artists.

 

Installation shot at 'By Popular Demand', Mall Galleries, London 2017 (forefround: 'Eric' by Tim Shaw RA; background left: 'Others 21' by Aishan Yu; background right: 'Tonopah NV' by Boyd and Evans)

Installation shot at ‘By Popular Demand’, Mall Galleries, London 2017 (forefround: ‘Eric’ by Tim Shaw RA; background left: ‘Others 21’ by Aishan Yu; background right: ‘Tonopah NV’ by Boyd and Evans)

Lisa: What are the best and worst aspects of your job?

Anna: I love the constant dialogue with artists and the excitement of bringing a show, event or commission to fruition.  Very occasionally commissions break down due to various circumstances and I always find this just a little bit heart breaking as so much goes into the production of them.

 

Lisa: What exciting plans do the Mall Galleries have in store for 2017?

 

Anna: Mall Galleries is involved in the Hermione Hammond Drawing Award, a prize for graduate students working with drawing as a medium. The winner will be announced in May so I’m looking forward to seeing the results.  We also have our exciting roster of open exhibitions planned for throughout the year including the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, also in May which I always find fascinating. We’ll also be opening the call for entries for the 2018 Columbia Threadneedle Prize, so that’s a good date in the diary for any artist thinking of submitting work.

 

Maenad with Drum (foreground) and Two Maenads with Bird Tim Shaw RA Bronze 2008 (Installation shot, 'By Popular Demand', Mall Galleries, 2017)

Maenad with Drum (foreground) and Two Maenads with Bird
Tim Shaw RA
Bronze
2008
(Installation shot, ‘By Popular Demand’, Mall Galleries, 2017)

Lisa: What kind of art do you find most inspiring?

Anna: I am challenged and humbled by work that has a psychological and societal dimension, regardless of medium. Earlier this year I had the privilege to work with some of Tim Shaw’s powerful sculptures for the exhibition By Popular Demand.  His earlier work draws heavily on conflict, and we’ve exhibited in the past two incredibly poignant sculptures drawn from an image of a burning soldier jumping from a tank in Iraq, as part of the Columbia Threadneedle Prize. For By Popular Demand I included some editions of his maenads, the intoxicated dancers who revel with Dionysis and two slightly terrifying fertility figures.  Whilst drawn from myth and legend these figures speak more broadly to the dark undercurrents which collect beneath society’s surface, bubbling up at times of conflict.

 

Installation shot at 'By Popular Demand', Mall Galleries, London (background left: 'Flux' by Nicholas McLeod; background right: 'Performer' by Aishan Yu; foreground: 'Two Maenads with Bird', 'Maenad with Drum' and 'Dancing Maenad' by Tim Shaw RA) 

Installation shot at ‘By Popular Demand’, Mall Galleries, London (background left: ‘Flux’ by Nicholas McLeod; background right: ‘Performer’ by Aishan Yu; foreground: ‘Two Maenads with Bird’, ‘Maenad with Drum’ and ‘Dancing Maenad’ by Tim Shaw RA)

Lisa: What will you be looking for in the work submitted to the Jackson’s Open Painting Prize?

 

Anna: A mark of personality, a fingerprint. Something that brings me into a universe unique to that artist.

 

Lisa: What is your creative new year’s resolution?

 

Anna: Find time to draw more! It’s really a therapeutic practice, much like mindfulness, it makes such a difference to a hectic life.

 

Installation shot, 'By Popular Demand', Mall Galleries, London 2017 ('Two Maenads with Bird', 'Maenad with Drum' and 'Dancing Maenad' by Tim Shaw RA (foreground), 'Others 21' by Aishan Yu (background left) and 'Tonopah NV' by Boyd and Evans (background right) )

Installation shot, ‘By Popular Demand’, Mall Galleries, London 2017 (‘Two Maenads with Bird’, ‘Maenad with Drum’ and ‘Dancing Maenad’ by Tim Shaw RA (foreground), ‘Others 21’ by Aishan Yu (background left) and ‘Tonopah NV’ by Boyd and Evans (background right) )

http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/

 

Header Image: ‘Fertility Figure IV’ and ‘Fertility Figure I’ by Tim Shaw RA, Bronze, 2008
(Installation shot from ‘By Popular Demand’, Mall Galleries, 2017)

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Lisa Takahashi has been a contributor to the blog since 2013 and a Jackson's team member since 2006. Her love of art materials spans oils, watercolours, acrylics and relief print techniques. Alongside her writing she regularly exhibits her artwork, and teaches linocut and painting in Bristol and Somerset.

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