Louis Singh is the Associate Director of Beaux Arts London which opened in Cork Street in 1993 and over the past three decades has developed a reputation for exhibiting the best of Modern British and contemporary painters and sculptors. The gallery’s focus is evenly divided between nurturing talent among the current generation of emerging artists – selected for their innovative practice as much as the aesthetic qualities of their work – and showing the work of established artists such as Terry Frost and Lynn Chadwick.
Louis generously donated his time and shared his expertise as he helped develop the Cork Street Open Exhibitions by leading the judging panel on several occasions.
OE: The majority of our readers are emerging artists, how is the gallery’s time and attention divided between new and emerging artists vs that of established artists?
LS: I’d say about half and half. We do still have a stable of artists who have been with us for years, John Holland and John Bellany for example. I suppose we always try and look for new artists and we’ve got quite an eclectic mix of artists. Recently we’ve got artists who kind of mix for example science and art in quite a new way, and there’s an artist, Marilène Oliver who uses modern digital imagery which is something that affects everybody’s lives these days. She’s trying to figure out where and how man sees himself in the world today with all this technology around us and that’s very interesting to do with these young artists.
It’s a lot of work and it’s not really where we make money particularly, but it means your putting things back into the art world as well which is good for everybody and makes us feel justified I suppose. We would spend more time if we could nurturing new artists, but we have a relatively small stable compared to other galleries. We always look at other galleries and think how can they possibly manage 30 or 40 artists. It’s just the way we work, we’re a family business and when we take on an artist we work quite closely with them. For that reason I suppose we only really look for people who live in England because we like to have access to the studio and we like to conversations etc, but that’s just us and the way we work, it’s certainly not the norm.
OE: I know that while they’re reading this interview many artists will really be wanting to know what they need to do to be represented by a gallery like Beaux Arts. You must see the work hundreds of new artists each year, what makes an artist stand out and what point in their journey as an emerging artist do they have to be before a gallery such as yours will consider representing them?
LS: You’ve got to remember that London overheads and the costs of having a gallery in London are at least twice as much as for example Bath, which is the second most expensive city. Usually there’s no hard fast rule, but artists would start off by getting themselves or their work shown in various group shows to get a little exposure and realistically try to get a gallery outside London to have a one man show.
Once you’ve had a one man show you can start developing your name and setting a standard for your prices etc. After two or three shows or various exposure through group shows and one man shows you can begin to build up your prices. And you need to be able to build up your prices a little bit before you can justify hanging n a London gallery because it’s not cheap here.
Like I said there’s no hard and fast rule. Some artists work with very expensive materials maybe and they can just hit the scene straight away because they’ve got backing, they’ve got money to put into what they’re doing first of all, so the parameters are different for that. There might be other artists who are so strikingly original that they will get snapped up straight away from art school regardless, before they’ve really tried to get themselves exposed to the wider art world. It does vary, it depends on the artist. I think if you’re a kind of painterly painter, it does help to have a bit of a CV, a bit of a history, a bit of material that a gallery can look back on and justify the relatively high prices it would have to charge if you were having a one man show in London. It’s a commercial world unfortunately.
OE: How does acting as a judge for an Open Exhibition differ from choosing artists for the gallery?
LS: When you’re choosing for a competition you’re not fixed to the parameters of your gallery’s aesthetic for example. Each gallery is different, but we have four members of staff, if I find an artist at an art school or at an exhibition my first task is to sell it to my three colleagues. If I can do that then we think we might be able to sell it to the public. With a competition you can be a lot more open minded.
OE: It must be quite a task trying to shortlist 100-150 works from an original list of 1,000 or more works. How you go about it, what’s your process?
LS: Its very difficult especially as the 1,000 works you initially receive come on a CD. Some of the works will be very much compromised because of the lack of textural detail that you can get from photographs and images of that type. You will have a system that you go through. I suppose, like art itself, you need to have various ways of letting it come to you. Some art is very immediate, it’s there to be noticed straight away, other art evolves on you and it’s a timely process. I think you need to take those kind of things into account when you’re going through these kind of images, when you’re going through so many images. Often I find going through them very quickly and picking out the stand out ones is a good way to start, but it invariably needs a second or probably a third visit in a slightly more reflective mood to try and accommodate these other kind of artists.
Luckily in the Cork Street Open Exhibition process there are two stages, anything that you’re a little bit unsure about or you think might be good but its difficult to tell ,because it’s a photograph, maybe its very textural work or very detailed work, you can give them a tic for the time being and get them in and see what happens when you see them real life, that’s the good thing about it.
You can often be surprised when works didn’t look like much on the disc and turn out to be quite striking. I like to think that I’m fairly adept at noticing these things before hand we always ask the gallery artists to send in images of their work rather than trooping in with their paintings under their arms, but you can always be surprised.
OE: How much are you influenced by the other judges in that second stage of judging?
LS: In a perfect world I suppose we’d all like to be the influencer. I suppose the diplomatic thing, or knowing when to compromise is always good. It’s very interesting having other judges there because you do pick up other ways of looking or other ways of seeing things. Everybody approaches art in their own way and for their own reasons. Certainly judges are already fans of art for their own personal reason. And while ultimately I’m a very aesthetic person, that’s my primary love as far as arts concerned rather than process or inspiration or any of these other things, I look at things. So I look at something, be it quickly or over a sustained period and have a feeling about it. So for me its quite hard to for someone to change my mind, but I notice that with other judges as well. I think I’m quite good at talking other people around, but it’s not easy, if it doesn’t do it for somebody they can maybe see where you’re coming from and why you like it, but it doesn’t mean that they like it, even though they understand what you’ve said.
OE: What do you think are the main benefits to new or emerging artists or any artist trying to build their reputation? Do you think open exhibitions and competitions are a worthwhile use of their time?
LS: I think they are absolutely worthwhile. Just for the chance for an emerging or even a very new virgin artist to have their work in a London gallery is fantastic. If I were an artist I’d jump at the chance because it’s a hard scene to get into, it’s going to look very good on your CV and it’s about exposure in the end of the day. People do see these things and people remember and if I was an artist I’d try and get myself into as many of these things as I possibly could. And I wouldn’t worry too much whether it’s necessarily pitched correctly because the advantages you’re getting from the exposure are just too good really. If you’re having a one man show, it’s the gallery that’s going to be picky and there’s artists that come up through art school that everybody wants to know and they can afford to be picky, but it’s not the norm. I don’t think you should be too picky with group exhibitions.
OE: Several artists have different methods for deciding what to submit. Some show work to friends, tutors or even strangers and asked what jumps out at them, almost removing themselves from the process; others send in their favourite works, some send very divergent styles, some send two or three in similar styles. Is there a right or wrong answer to the question of what they should submit?
LS: Very much so I think, and I think this goes for galleries or competitions. The old adage, which I’ve probably got wrong, is “Jack of all trades, master of none.” You really want to see an artist whose found an identity, knows what they’re good at, has something they are trying to project, there’s something that they want to say. A successful artist ultimately needs to be talented and good at what they do, but far more importantly is originality. Obviously originality is hard in this very repertoiral world we live in these days, everything’s been done, but there’s always a new way of doing something, whether its materials, the creative process or how you’re getting to a place. Some art makes people look a different way, makes you learn about how you look at things, makes you learn about yourself or how other people see things, there’s all kind of ways.
OE: So you want to see the artist’s “voice” in the work?
LS: Yes, just do what you do best and draw from your own experience. Paint or sculpt or create what you know and don’t be afraid of that. The best artists in my view aren’t afraid to show what they think, what they feel or what they’re scared of, what they desire. People who give the viewers a window into something different. We’ve all got unique minds. If we could all some how intricately explain and picture and detail our minds to everybody else, life would be very interesting… It’s creating that into something that people can see as an artwork that’s difficult.
The thing that depresses me when artists apply at the gallery is when they’ve got figurative on their website, and then they’ve got abstract work on their website, and they’ve got still life on their website and they all might be good, but you have to ask, what are we doing here? So decide, commit to something.
To discover more about Beaux Arts London, please visit this site: http://www.beauxartslondon.co.uk
Open Exhibition 