Correspondance to and from the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) after all six of my entries for the 2006 exhibition were rejected.
14TH September 2006
Dear Andrew Stock,
I was compelled to write to you following the rejection of all five of my entries to this year's SWLA exhibition. Having exhibited at least one piece of work with you for the last six years running, I was naturally shocked at a total rejection of all works, especially as I felt my entries were of the highest standard I had submitted to date.
Although I have experienced both the highs and lows of exhibition submission in the ten years I have been a professional artist, I must admit that my initial reaction was one of devastation, quickly followed by not a little bit of anger and incredulity. Having had time to reflect and temper these feelings though, I hope this will not read as any kind of embittered rant or poison-pen letter.
I feel I must explain the philosophy of my work to you, not in some vain attempt to curry favour or get work accepted, but simply to pose the question to you and the SWLA at large, as to what constitutes wildlife art today?
To my mind there are essentially two aspects to the production of any work of art - what is being said? (the subject, the intention, the artist's purpose) and how is it being said? (the execution, the choice of media, the presentation chosen). Having visited the SWLA annually for most of the past decade, I think the latter aspect is admirably supported with many diverse approaches on show, from painting, to sculpture, to collage, printmaking and the like - a myriad of ways and techniques of representing wildlife subjects. But what of the former aspect? Must a wildlife artist be restricted to only representing creatures exactly as they occur in the wild (an observed study, or a habitat based piece)? Is the only originality in wildlife art to be achieved in finding new styles or media with which to represent? What of the artists intentions? What about the philosophical - some meaning in wildlife art?
Picasso said, 'Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth' - can a wildlife artist not contrive their work (as all artists inevitably do anyway) to imbue meaning or send out a message? When the worlds wildlife is disappearing faster than ever before, surely the time is right for wildlife art to start asking questions. I have never seen a painting at the SWLA that made me think 'what does it mean?', though plenty that made me think 'how was it done?' Art should ask questions, not provide answers. I am attempting with my work to ask questions - not with an unusual style of work (as my style is traditional oil technique) but with originality of image and subject.
I was rather hoping that the SWLA would recognise this effort to move wildlife art in a different direction. Whilst one wildlife artist's philosophy may be to paint a quick emotive watercolour from life of say a curlew on a marsh (expressing an emotional reaction to seeing that bird) is it not as valid for an artist like myself to paint a bird of paradise being consumed by fire to express how much I fear for the loss of the world's beautiful creatures?
When I look back at 'wildlife art' from as far back as French 19th Century painting to today I cannot help but feel wildlife art has not moved forward one jot (and in the case of many of the realistic painters has gone in to reverse) although techniques and approaches have changed. When I think of the most interesting bird painter today (Ray Ching) and animal painter (Walton Ford) I am reminded that their work is memorable for what it says about wildlife, its vulnerability, its wildness, and most importantly what it means to us, themes that can rarely be discussed in works that's sole raison d'etre is 'this is a curlew.' I assume both artists would be similarly rejected if they submitted work to the SWLA?
I must conclude that there is little point in submitting challenging or original work to the SWLA as long as it fails to accommodate the 'arty' alongside the 'wildlife.' My regret is that the general public is not given the chance to make up their own minds.
As president of the SWLA, I would appreciate your own thoughts on these points.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Jones
Reply recieved from Andrew Stock, SWLA
17th October 2006
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your letter of the 14th September.
You raise some interesting points that are very relevant to wildlife art today and I hope to put them to the council at our next meeting.
However, with regard to the merits or otherwise of your work, the selection committee is a group of elected peers that judges the many works submitted; we welcome challenging and original ideas and I am sorry that the committee didn't feel that your paintings met the relevant criteria this year. The committee is progressive in its outlook and tends to instinctively warm to new and innovative concepts.
It is a brave man who compares himself to the original ideas and beautifully executed paintings of Raymond Ching and it goes without saying that original and well executed work will always stand a very good chance of being selected.
We have enjoyed some of your work in the past and it would be good to see more in the future. You have probably already seen it but I enclose the page from the SWLA website which gives more details of the guidelines for selection.
Kind regards,
Andrew Stock, SWLA
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