Warning! The following could be considered snarky.
BP Portrait Award 2015
It was recently reported in the London Times-Picayune that, once again, Mike McCarty did not win the prestigious BP Portrait Award for 2015 – and would he please stop entering!
This year’s contest brought a record 2,748 entries from which were chosen a first, second, and third place. Fifty entries were selected and summoned to London based on their digital entry. From the fifty the three places were chosen. The remaining 47 were also retained for exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London as well as other venues. No small matter being one of the 47.
I offer here two of the 47 winners – not for ridicule, but for admiration. These two artists entered this prestigious PORTRAIT competition with paintings that show no part of a face. No profile, no mirror image or reflection in a pond, no ear sticking out from loosely rendered hair. One does show a hand. While for me and my limited and confused understanding they don’t meet the implied minimum content, these artists, through their courage and vision – won!
I would be shocked, shocked, if I were ever chosen as one of the 47. My reason for entering, then, was developed from observing the winners of the past. I thought that if the judges are going to make a mistake, maybe the mistake they make could be with my painting.
The question then becomes: Is no eye better than a bad eye? Would the eye that these subjects allegedly have, been painted better than my painted eye, had their eye actually been painted, based on the quality of their painted backside? The answer comes back: yes, and yes.
Next year I’m going to enter this portrait competition again in spite of the newspapers admonition. I’m going to enter with the beautiful floral painting below. Oh, it’s not mine, I stole it from Chris Saper’s web site (Chris, we’ll split the 30m pounds). I think the fact that it was stolen will give it that edgy, non-conformist element that’s been lacking in my work. I’m going to call my work: “Imagined self-portrait in profile, standing just left (or was it right?) of frame, with stolen roses.”
Also, on the cover of their booklet that presents all these fine paintings they show one of the 47 and not the winner. This is puzzlement to me. If they liked this painting so much why didn’t it win first prize?
I think it was a bit harsh for them to single me out in the newspaper like that, but, you know, my once beautiful Caucasian pale, occasionally pinkish hued skin, has thickened into a crusty, blotchy, sca … oh, never mind that. You cowboy up, then you soldier on.
Clearly, there are holes in my understanding of so many things. Maybe one of the many learned members of this forum can help fill my holes of knowing.
All fifty can be seen
here: