I happened to glance at something the other day from the people I buy my art materials from, Jacksons, who are excellent in providing what I need. They have for some years ‘sponsored’ an art prize and exhibition. Looking at the posting I see the following information:

This year, Jackson’s Art Prize received 15,345 submissions from 117 countries around the world. 426 made it to the longlist, and 70 went on to the shortlist. From these 70, 20 artworks were awarded prizes including this year’s First Prize winner.

That’s it! 15k submissions, how incredible, and after that only 20 prizes. What an unenviable task to view all those and choose one to win it. And the winner was this:

In many ways this does not really do the painting justice, it is a large canvas and I expect it’s well worth seeing for real, but what really takes the biscuit is the almost perfect “art bollocks’ from the judges.

And here, one of the the other artists delves so deep into art bollocks that the rest of us ordinary mortals are left lost for words,, well I am.

“My fascination intertwines with the profound insights of Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century poet and philosopher often dismissed by some as bird-witted. Yet, I perceive her as a visionary ahead of her era. Her contemplations on the purity of love and the boundless realm of imagination resonate as a critique of our modern, technologically driven society, where narratives fade swiftly. Delving deeper, I embarked on a journey to employ colour as a means of transcending conventional perceptions, drawing inspiration from Cavendish’s poignant verses.

I sought to encapsulate the delicate balance between the quest for truth and the fragile innocence of existence, akin to deciphering a divine language. My canvases evolved into parchment-like surfaces, imbued with layers of translucent pigments, each brushstroke a testament to the ephemeral nature of creation. The interplay of bold, opaque hues served as an ode to the raw essence of expression, each mark a whispered echo in the vast expanse of abstraction.
Embracing the epithet of “bird-witted,” this painting inspire by ‘Poems and fancies’ I embrace the endless expanse of imagination with colour and forms acting with boundless energy of a poet.”

and now I suppose you might be wondering what magic images this artist came up with, well here it is:

It’s called Sugar Plum Words and it’s by Melanie Herman. Congratulations to her for winning one of the prizes in the Exhibition. I’m beginning to see a fine seam of art bollocks here.

If you’d like to see more of the artworks you can find them here

There are some really fine works to be seen here, honestly. Just try to avoid the bollocks. How refreshing to find this on the site, the Winner from 2019, and just nine simple words to describe it. I feel better already.