NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

RHS Botanical Art Show 2024: Awards and Medals

17/6/2024

This is about who was awarded what - in terms of awards and medals - at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024 - which opened to the public at the Saatchi Gallery in London on Friday 14th July 2023.

The exhibition continues until 7th July 2024 and I highly recommend you pay it a visit if you have any aspirations to being a better botanical artist.

The Three Award Winners at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024

This is a VERY, VERY LONG post - with lots of images and lots of useful information and tips.

Below is a list of all the 22 botanical artists and illustrators whose exhibits were

assessed by the RHS Picture Panel for Botanical Art and
awarded an RHS medal - PLUS an award for some.

My write up

starts with who won the three major Awards
then covers all the Gold Medallists I focus in particular on the exhibits by the Gold Medallists and Award Winners - with photographs of both exhibit and artist where possible.
followed by the rest of the medals - in order

You can find the profiles of ALL the other artists in my previous post Artists exhibiting at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024. There is also a link to an artist's home site in their name.

At the end, I highlight

how artwork is assessed and medals awarded
the profiles of the Judges
how to see the exhibition

My next post (this week) will focus on key themes around

what makes a difference - why people win Gold i.e. the strengths exhibited by the best exhibits and
areas for improvement - aspects relating to the different criteria used for judging and areas of weakness where artists could improve.

Both will hopefully be helpful.

I'll use examples from the Gold Medallists to demonstrate important points
but will NOT reference individuals where I am focusing on aspects where artists can do better.

Awards for Outstanding Botanical Artwork

There are three awards which, in the context of the show, are all of relatively recent origin. However as the numbers of exhibitors have grown and the standard of art exhibited has improved significantly, it was felt that there was a need to recognise all those who had particularly impressed the Judges. (More about the Judges at the end!)

It's notable that all three Gold Medal winners - who also won an Award - are ALL First Time Exhibitors. This is VERY impressive - but it must be acknowledged that it is actually becoming more normal. That's because very many artists, after becoming approved to exhibit, do not apply to exhibit at a specific exhibition UNTIL they have an excellent exhibit to submit.

Best Botanical Art Exhibit
LYNNE UPTIN The Genus Richea: A Relic of Gondwana.

The Genus Richea: A Relic of Gondwana

This is a classic example of an artist who chose to do a very unusual and highly scientific project - and then produced paintings which are very complex and yet explain everything and are also very attractive. A number of them were painted from herbaria specimens - and we see examples of these in the slideshow in the gallery.

Lynne has been painting the Genus Richea since 2020. Richea is a genus of 11 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. Nine of the species are endemic to Tasmania - where she lives - and the other two are endemic to the south-east of the Australian mainland. It's also associated with the split up of the supercontinent of Gondwana as Tasmania was the last region of the continental plates to split from Antartica.

I think we can expect a second exhibit of Genus Richea from Lynne!

In 2023/24 Lynne has focussed on developing a body of works for this exhibition which is a study of 6 of the species of the genus Richea, a plant with ancient and fascinating origins. The majority of the species are endemic to Tasmania’s World Heritage temperate rainforests.

Charlotte Brooks (left) presents Lynne Uptin with her Crystal Vase for Best Exhibit

Lynne Uptin was the Director of Arts Tasmania for 20 years. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2010 for her services to arts administration. Prior to that she worked as an illustrator and owned two art galleries.

What's really interesting is that Lynne is relatively new to botanical art. However she has started exhibiting, became a Fellow of SBA and has won awards for her artwork.

Her first exhibition in 2022 at a prestigious gallery was a sell out.
She received an Award of Merit in Botanical Art for her painting of a Kangaroo Paw in the SBA exhibition Plantae 2024

Judge’s Special Award
There's a second award for an entire exhibit called the Judges Special Award which was introduced in 2018. This was after Dr. Hye Woo Shin GM (2013,2014,2018,2022) came back for the third time to win another Gold Medal, after she had also previously won the Best Exhibit (2013 and 2014). It's not an award which automatically goes to a Gold Medal Winner. However it is an award which is often more related to new ideas or subjects for botanical art and/or the scale of the endeavour - and exhibits which the Judges really like!

SUNANDA VERMA WIDEL Ornamental Bananas from Southeast Asia.

Ornamental bananas are very much associated with South East Asia and these particular bananas grow in Singapore Botanical Gardens which is a UNESCO Heritage Site. Her exhibit demonstrates the morphological diversity found in the Musaceae genus in Singapore.

This was a project which clearly exemplified the scale of her endeavour to record this genus. Her aim was to demonstrate their upright habit and the variety of the flower forms, the fruit and the amazing array of colours of different species. Her artwork also includes a neat row of dissections to illustrate parts of the plant. Overall she has more than succeeded, as her exhibit has great impact within the Gallery.

Her fieldwork, over several years, involved making accurate measurements, detailed drawings and colour swatches throughout the year - all while sat in the tropical heat of Singapore - and there are photographs of her doing this in the slideshow opposite her exhibit in the gallery.

Sunanda Verma Widel - with three of the paintings in her exhibit

Sunanda, who lives in Singapore, only took up botanical art after she retired from her teaching career in international schools around the world. She has a background in art and a degree in Printmaking.

On retirement from teaching, she began to study botanical art with the Society of Botanical Art's 2-year Distance Learning Diploma Course (DLDC). In 2018, she graduated with distinction. Sunanda is a Fellow of the SBA and a member of the ASBA and a founder member of the Botanical Art Society of Singapore (BASS). She has exhibited internationally and her artwork is held in the archive collections at both the RBG Edinburgh and the SBG. She will also be exhibiting in the 17th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration at the Hunt Institute in Pittsburgh this autumn. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of Sunada's artwork in future!

Best Botanical Artwork
DALEEN ROODT Eulophia horsfallii & Dissotis princeps with carpenter bees (Xylocopa flavorufa).

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Society of Botanical Artists: Plantae 2024 now online

3/6/2024

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This year the Society of Botanical Artists have opted to have an ONLINE EXHIBITION in place of an annual exhibition in a gallery.

This post is about how you can see it - by thumbnail, artwork or artist!

ABOUT PLANTAE 2024

Plantae 2024 is now available to view online - until 30th June 2024.

To view the artworks you need to click the link in the TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER of the website. I found it takes rather a long time to load - but that's doubtless due to the very many images of artwork which you can see online!

You have the option to:

view by artist - which, if you have favourite artists, avoids having to page through to find your favourites. At the end of this blog post, you can see a list of all the participating artists
view by artwork - each artwork has a page to itself - and this also provides a bit more access to information about the artist (if they've provided it).
view by Thumbnail which enables you to see the range of artwork on display online

You can also view the artworks created by the students and graduates of our Distance Learning Diploma Course - on a completely seperate page on this link DLDC Plantae Gallery 2024

If you are interested in purchasing any of the artwork on display, you need to contact the artist direct via the "Enquire about this artwork" button. Note that there are variations in what's on offer:

some are selling originals drawings, paintings or fine art print - framed or unframed
some are also selling reproduction digital prints - for a very reasonable sum

Thumbnail images of some of the artwork being exhibited in SBA Plantae 2024

Participating Artists

The names of the participating artists are listed below - in alphabetic order of their (last) surname. I've taken the liberty of changing the order of some of the names (currently out of sync with the alphabetical order) so they can be found more easily

You will see that:

not all are members of SBA - and I've emboldened all those who are Fellows of the SBA
there's a LOT of international artists - with a strong bias towards those from South East Asia
many are names well known from past SBA Annual Exhibitions
some are being VERY self-effacing - as in the ones who have won an RHS Gold Medal (and MULTIPLE RHS Gold Medals!) I feel like outing them by putting their GMs in the list!
and some are very new - and hence participating for the first time.

PLUS I've spotted a number of names of artists who are participating in this year's RHS Show which opens next week (see my last post Artists exhibiting at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024)

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Two days left to book Julia Trickey Talks at discount!

30/1/2024

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The talks organised by Julia Trickey are now very well know within the botanical art world - and are also accessible to every botanical artist around the world.

This is about the talks which will take place in the first half of 2024 - plus details of a very generous offer from Julia.

February - March 2024

The new schedule of one hour Julia Trickey Talk for the first half of 2024 has been published
On the Talks Page on her website you can find out about:

summary details about the talk and the speaker
how to register and book - the link to register for the talk is at bottom of each "Talk Box" on the Talks Page.
all talks are available for £8 if you book a place before the end of January.
If you register after 31 January, the talks are £12 each.
how to access the talk - all talks are on Zoom and you need a Zoom account to be able to watch
how to access the talk (or watch again) AFTER the date of the talk (for a limited period) if you do NOT want or are unable to watch at the time it is given.
PLUS there's a comprehensive list of frequently asked questions HERE

The Talks include:

a lot of botanical artists who are very well known internationally ;
other speakers who are maybe better known in their own countries but have particularly specialised skills relating to the way they create botanical art - which may open your mind and eyes to media and techniques you have not previously considered.

If you'd like to enjoy a sample, you can watch a FREE ZOOM video of BOTANICAL ART TALKS - Best Bits 2023- Shared screen with speaker view

APRIL - MAY 2024

As somebody who has done a couple of talks for Julia, I can confirm they are always extremely well organised with those talking given a prep and practice beforehand so all goes smoothly on the day of the talk.

Plus there's lots of opportunities to ask questions of the speaker if you watch LIVE!

JUNE - AUGUST 2024

NOTE: The next subscriber email of one of these blog posts may well look different as I have to move to a platform on Mailerlite before 1 February 2024 - and have to set up the way it looks again from scratch.

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