In Summary – The Northern Art Prize

Photo Credit: David Lindsay

Guest blog by Louisa Parker aka @Skiptomyloulou

Visiting the Northern Art prize show to say goodbye to it the other day, I realised this is the first year I’ve agreed with the choice of winner (Leo Fitzmaurice) however, I still have a little pang for Richard Rigg, whose furniture works I really liked, especially the chairs, playful conundrums which seem to me to simultaneously refer to chairs and deny chair-like values, a little like the statement sometimes used in philosophy, that the present king of France is bald, which is true and not true at the same time, and can’t be denied. Maybe getting a bit too technical there, but there it is, that’s what art’s for, to make thoughts from things, and I’m a big thinker, I think.

Leo Fitzmaurice’s work includes a slide show, a collection of found images which function like observed drawings (as opposed to observational drawings) in which colours, forms, echoes, divisions and frames accumulate to communicate rich, thoughtful imagery which is truly sublime and which delighted the audience inside the crate on the day I was there. There is sharp humour: a door sized pint glass in an advertising hoarding, a floating Mac Donald’s cup and accidental bunny ears shadow puppets.

Observed similarities are central to image making in general and to Fitzmaurice’s work specifically. It’s quite old fashioned in many ways: moments caught in passing, lines painted over, flattened colours and textures arranged in blocks and divisions within a frame, lines go here and lines go there…it’s like Sol le Witt with an urban soul and a mobile phone. His other work in this show, which takes a horizon line for a walk, doesn’t excite me so much, and seems a little contrived, but is perfectly charming too.

Richard Rigg’s coat hook was a popular exhibit, judging by the constant stream of people hovering, waiting to peer into it, and I wonder if this is because it is a little like looking up someone’s anus, such a perfect little hole, but maybe I’m underestimating the audience. His furniture pieces are also just the right size, because proportion in furniture is of vital importance even if it’s not possible to sit on it, and his telegraph poles perfectly penetrate the stair well too.

I’m not big on painting generally and prefer anti-painting type painting which James Hugonin’s work seems to be at first. It achieves this anti status while sharing the kind of sumptuous colourist values of painterly painting, which is odd. It must be either soothing or maddening to make, a bit like playing scales over and over and the end result falls somewhere between digital precision and colourful tenderness. I don’t think they go quite far enough, I’d like them to dissolve a little more from a distance, so I found them a little unsatisfying.

Liadin Cooke’s work was the most difficult for me, which annoys me, as I like to like the woman in the show. I loved the texture and appearance of nettles on paper but the sculptures didn’t please me, I’m just not sure about the combination of materials, or the treatment of the wax. It didn’t seem as joyous or playful as Fitzmaurice’s work and (not her fault, but the fault of the gallery) what a shame about the huge black letters proclaiming VERY FRAGILE DO NOT TOUCH.

There were lots of visitors to the gallery the day I was there, including a group of older people in the Fitzmaurice slide show crate who were quite captivated by the slides and were being very complimentary about the work. It’s nice to hear enthusiasm about art when I come up against so much negativity and cynicism about contemporary art in my everyday life, mostly from the non-initiated but occasionally from those who should know better. Why on earth anyone would think that contemporary artists might want to put in so much time and effort for so little financial reward (generally speaking) only in order to execute some kind of elaborate con I don’t know, but I come across many people who think this is the case, and it makes me sad that they miss out on such wonderful objects, images and ideas. I do think life should be more about what you can appreciate than what you can find to sneer at.

Prizes like the Turner and the Northern are presented in a manner that makes art and artists accessible and I would say that each NAP show has done an excellent job of this. The Northern Art prize succeeds in being a high quality accessible art show and long may it thrive, maybe even long enough for me to be nominated? I can but hope…

Louisa Parker wants you to follow her on Twitter, and quite rightly. She’s a Leeds based artist and writer who’s also somehow ended up in charge of the creative short courses at Leeds College of Art