Lola by Alison Day
Meet Lola...
my submission for the 2010 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2010
in London, England.
Yes, I was
actually mad enough to send her, packed in kilometres of bubble wrap and
cardboard, from The Netherlands to my sister (Caroline) in London. Using
UPS, which was a story in itself, as during tracking she got stuck in the depo
for 24 hours, went round and round in circles on their carousel for
no apparent reason, until they finally decided to send her on her way. Shortly
after that I flew over end of March and together with my sister and niece,
Carina, took her to the RA. The whole project was incredibly exciting from
start to finish and even though this year my work wasn't chosen to take part in
the exhibition, my interest has been awakened...and there's always next year!
On another
visit to England in July, we of course had to make a trip to the RA to see
what did finally get into the exhibition...we saw a lot
of great work and some monumental crap too, from so-called 'eminent' artists. I
won't mention names, as I don't want to give them extra publicity, but also
don't want to be sued for slander! That said, I still think Lola would have
fitted nicely into the exhibition, but of course I am biased and it probably
was very difficult choosing 1267 pieces out of 10,000 submissions!
A word of
criticism, however, directed @ the RA...I do think that prominent artists
should be limited to a maximum of two pieces of artwork, seeing as space is at
a premium. Also, to the misguided person who decided that it would be better to
space out the artworks and not 'paper' the walls from floor to ceiling, as
has been tradition since 1769, resulting in less artists' work being
exhibited...'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' I'd say!
Lola is one
of my papiermaché-mosaics. So far, my subject matter has the re-occurring theme
of portraits of women. In my eyes, I choose the fairer sex, because of their
chameleon-like diversity as well as their unequaled adaptability and
creativity. As a result womankind has provided me (and still continues to do
so) with an endless supply of studies for completed as well as future projects.
