What a day, on Monday 10 June, attending the historic Varnishing Day at The Royal Academy.
I am lucky, this is the third time I have been accepted into the Royal Academy Summer show. I knew what to expect. The way it works is once your work has been shortlisted, then selected, you wait until varnishing day to find out which room your work is exhibited in and who has curated the room.
After the 'Special Service for Artists' at St James's Church, Piccadilly, artists head to the gallery to search in the beautiful little catalogue for this info.
My little painting is no.716 in Room IV.
The RA co-ordinator this year, Anne Christopher had 'expressed her love for architecture and desire to place it front and centre in this years summer exhibition.'
Curating this room are the group @assembleofficial, a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art, employing a democratic and co-operative working method. I heard an impressive talk by them a number of years ago. This brought me such joy to find my painting in this room.
I painted 'Blasket Island' after a recent artists residency in the west coast of Ireland. I visited there by boat, and felt touched by the island's history and the families who lived and left there. I worked in oils from an old photograph of how the homes and landscape looked.
Overall, what I saw of this year's summer show blew me away, and it was great to meet and hang around with so many artists, all grateful and full of chat!
Here’s a great review from the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/12/architecture-royal-academy-summer-exhibition-assemble
