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It's contest season here in Spain and about two weeks ago I joined one of them here in a nearby town. One of those contests wherein you sign in, they stamp the back of your blank canvas and you go off to find a spot somewhere and paint whatever strikes you, and you're supposed to submit a finished work at the end of the day. This one was about 7 hours.
I've joined these contests in the past and have never won.
Juries have been known to select the avante-guard type of painting, the school of spatter and stain, but I don't mind...I join them every now and then because I have a good time painting outdoors, get to meet people, etc.
This time, in this particular contest, I opted to join the still life category. I was selected as a finalist (among 29 others of a total of about 115 painters), but did not win. Below I've posted my work (first image) followed by the one that won. Both measure about the same size (100 x 81cm) Mine, as you can see is different (not better), just wanted to point out that judges have criteria that don't coincide with my
own. It would seem they have the same judges in all the contests.
I had a good time, though and am happy to have been selected. If traditional, representational "good painting" takes the limelight again, it would appear we have come full circle, and would mean (to me, at least) that the wandering about the "isms" and the spattering and the staining that the art world has been up to the past decades has begun to prove itself as unfulfilling.
But then again, this is just a "traditional, old master loving, naturalist" painter talking.
Carlos
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