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Norfolk based Artist, working and exhibiting Internationally 

Kirsty O'leary-Leeson; Artist

I am an emerging artist who graduated from Norwich University College of the Arts June 2011, with a first class degree in Fine Art. I have been a finalist in the International Saatchi Drawing Showdown, have exhibited across the Uk and also appeared in the BBC 2 Programme 'Show Me the Monet'. Visual Art Trader wrote of my work: "The senses of emotional uncertainty, of time evaporating and of forgotten memories in Kirsty's drawings are made all the more powerful by the beautiful and precise execution of the images." www.kirstyoleary.com

The Price of Acceptance

So I decided to try my luck at open submissions again.  This time with the Royal Society Of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries.  You apply online via the Mall galleries website.  You pay per entry, so just one for me, and upload your image.  Then check back to see if you have made it past the first round - yay! I did, I got the picture out… and promptly dropped it,  argghh, the dent on one corner was very tiny, but if the image is perfect, then so does the substrate need to be.  I had a week to get an emergency frame made - argh more expenditure, then booked train tickets as I needed to take the drawing and deliver it in person to the Mall Galleries for the final selection procedure.  

I decided to walk from Liverpool street to the Mall, 40 mins exercise would do me good, unfortunately my shoes weren’t so pleased at this choice and they began to rub. 
As I approached the Mall I began to panic, all the doors were closed, and I had less than an  hour to hand it in.  I checked my print out….nooooo, it was a different address, when it said online ‘hand in to the Mall galleries’ I had assumed it meant 'The’ mall galleries.  I phoned my husband, gave him the address and he found it on google maps and began to give me directions, apparently it wasn’t far away.  However some time was just spent with me standing in the middle of the roundabout next to Trafalgar Square arguing over the phone 
Husband:  You should have The Mall on your right and the square on your left
Me: Maybe I should have, but it’s not, the Mall is on my left…… blah blah blah.

Anyway eventually I managed to make it to the address, turns out we had used the postcode only and this was not accurate, more re-tracing of steps and finally made it to the actual address. By now my shoes had begun to fall apart, it was raining and I was miserable.
Worst of all, the hand in address was actually just the back door of the gallery, if I had walked a few more yards down the Mall I would have come to some steps that cut through to the back door.

Well I was pleased to finally offload the drawing, and stagger back to the train station and return home.

It had all been such a long and painful procedure with regards to money, time and feet to this point that I was sure I was doomed to be rejected.

Thanks be that I wasn’t, it made it into the exhibition and I even decided to go back down for the Private View.  Unfortunately the drinks weren’t free but a friendly waitress filled up my water bottle… (with water).
Dan Snow opened it, and I was quite excited as he walked around the exhibition and he drew nearer to my work, I was preparing to thrust one of my cards at him when suddenly he diverted and never came back to the corner where I was. Booo. 

My work was quite different from the majority of paintings there, and I got a lot of compliments with people saying it was their favourite, one woman said that if there was a fire mine would be the one she would grab and run away with, typically most of these comments came from fellow artists, or partners of artists, no-one with any ready cash.

Quite a few were being sold, a lady was wandering around with a pack of red dots and my heart would leap if she headed in my direction.  It was hard to loiter in front of my work as I would obscure other peoples art so I hung back and if anyone pointed at it I would jump in and thrust a card at them, hoping they were saying how marvellous it was and not 'don’t like that one’.

I left with it unsold, but it did sell before the end of the show, the 45% commission and the 20% VAT doesn’t leave me with much of a profit, but I am extremely grateful to the buyer as he has saved me from yet another trip down to London! Thankyou so much.

Posted 569 weeks ago

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