A gallery said my work is not "strong enough". (???)

[cjorgensen]

I am not in a gallery yet, but I'm trying. I visited a gallery and I thought my work (technique) was comparable to what they had on the walls. They said if I emailed them some photos, they would consider my work. The gallery was very small, so they preferred small paintings. I sent three photos, as different as possible so they could see some range. They were polite and said that my paintings were not "strong enough" and they know what their customers like. What does "strong enough" mean? What is a "strong" painting?

I understand value, composition, drawing. warm/cool, etc., but I don't understand "strong".

Thanks a bunch for your help.

Here are the paintings that I submitted. Please feel free to explain to me why these paintings are not "strong", or post some examples of "strong" paintings. Thanks!


8x10, oil, knife technique.


Matilija Chaparral, 11x14, oil. (This is a local scene, so I thought it was a good idea.)


Two Trees. 6x8, oil. Another local scene of a well known landmark.

[andymathis]

I think the second painting is the best of the three.

I am not sure if sending three different paintings was such a good idea. If I were a gallery owner, I would prefer to see consistency over range.

[olde bob]

Hello - I dont usually answer these kinds of posts because it's just too hard in trying not to hurt one's feelings. But I've thought you are an exceptionally nice person who works hard at her craft, so I offer my .02 with every hope your feelings are not hurt in any way.

You are good enough to go pro if you want to, but yes, you need to make stronger art. For instance, I went into your past blog and this is the 1st strong piece I saw back in april of last year.



The composition is dynamic. It is unusual. The colors are strong. In short, it is interesting and demands attention. To be brustally honest with you (again, please dont be hurt), the 3 pieces you posted just look like students work to me.

Hey, everybody has to do student work, but you can go beyond that now, if you want to. I finally broke out of student work mentality when I downloaded thousands of images of the old masters from art museums all over the world. I downloaded each piece that grabbed me as a thumbnail (if you'll notice, if it doesnt look good in a thumbnail it usually doesnt look good blown up; and also, if it looks good blown up it will usually still look good as a thumbnail), and I studied them for endless hours and started getting an idea of what strong work is. I cant tell you how much I learned from doing this. Note: I would not study much work from modern painters as 90% of all work today is pretty much souless.

After 3 years of doing this studying, and constant painting, I finally came up with a style that I love doing, and that sells very well (136 paintings last year).

One disadvantage you have (oh man, I'm going to get killed here, but please try and hear what I'm saying), is that women often gravitate towards softer, gentler work. But that's not what sells. You want dynamic work, again, similar to your bristlecone pine above. This is the sort of work that grabs attention and sells. Not complcated work, necessarily, but strong, almost iconic pieces.

Here below are some samples of what I mean. Notice that most are quite simple and they cover various subject matter. Again, I would study, study, study strong painters:

[olde bob]

MORE examples of strong work

[alfreda]

Oldebob: "One disadvantage you have (oh man, I'm going to get killed here, but please try and hear what I'm saying), is that women often gravitate towards softer, gentler work. "

Yes, you will, that is a tired old stereotype and a load of codswallop and unsupportable.

I love the twisted tree

[cjorgensen]

Hi! I am following along and reading everything. My feelings are not hurt. I want to SELL, not have my ego coddled. THANK YOU for telling me the truth and helping me! I will continue to watch this to see what else I can learn. Thanks SO much!

P.S. I got the twisted tree (bristle cone pine) from the WC Image Reference Library.

[alfreda]

check out the work of alice neel, paula rego, kathe kollowitz, frida kahlo, grace hartigan. Regardless of whether you like their work of not, it makes a strong statement using bold lines, colours, composition, subject matter and angles.

Looking at Paula Rego's work, there is an underlying tension in many of her paintings. Her angles, bold colours etc really make a statement.

I don't see that in your plate with two strawberries. check out another artists work with two strawberries on a plate, I think you will like.

ps. men paint strawberries too

[bleu]

Carolyn -- could you say something about the inspiration and the painting of that twisted tree?
Of the three you posted, at first I felt they were all too "soft", almost mushy, but that is definitely a personal preference. There are plenty of people who want to see a more gentle painting. On second thought, it's pretty amazing that you got such an expansive scene (#2) into an 11 x 14 canvas. I bet it's more beautiful in person. The third picture sort of fades out for me but when I look I see beautiful loose painting in the green row of background trees. It may be the colors in the foreground that lose me but it's more likely the sameness of the flowers -- since they are the foreground, could there be some more detail -- not a lot! -- just some definition in some of the flowers? I'm not sure about the strawberries -- but you see, if you'd shown three paintings of fruits I could try to follow your direction. Alfreda is right -- more could be done with that plate and shadows. What did you want to do? Good sense of the texture of berries and nice leaves.
I agree, you shouldn't bother the gallery with your range. This is always a problem -- try to choose three paintings that echo each other. After all, they have never seen your work before and they may not see it as 'range' but as indecision.

[olde bob]

Originally Posted by cjorgensen

Hi! I am following along and reading everything. My feelings are not hurt. I want to SELL, not have my ego coddled. THANK YOU for telling me the truth and helping me! I will continue to watch this to see what else I can learn. Thanks SO much!

P.S. I got the twisted tree (bristle cone pine) from the WC Image Reference Library.

yeah, but YOU made it pop.

So happy you arent offended. Oh my, my wife (a pro artist of 25 years) was relentless with me. Very frustrating until I found my stride. Just keep working to find your unique voice. You have the talent and the drive, and actually, IMHO, talent takes a big back seat to drive. I am not very talented really, however, I was going to find a way to make my way if it killed me....and I'm still alive.

[olde bob]

Originally Posted by alfreda

check out the work of alice neel, paula rego, kathe kollowitz, frida kahlo, grace hartigan. Regardless of whether you like their work of not, it makes a strong statement using bold lines, colours, composition, subject matter and angles.

Looking at Paula Rego's work, there is an underlying tension in many of her paintings. Her angles, bold colours etc really make a statement.

I don't see that in your plate with two strawberries. check out another artists work with two strawberries on a plate, I think you will like.

ps. men paint strawberries too

the point is to paint boldly, whether male or female. Many terrific female artists, obviously. Georgia O'Keefe is one of my all time favorites. But the hard fact is that virtually every major gallery that deals in representational art in the USA has 3 to 4 times more men than women painters. Is there a reason for that? I think we all just need to remind ourselves to ...'paint boldly!!"

PS....perhaps my all time favorite present day artist is Peggy Kroll-Roberts. I cant tell you how much studying her work has helped me. I own every one of her videos.

[PaulsArt]

I think you have plenty of art moxie for your paintings to succeed. Your strawberries look really good in fact. Except for the lack of shadows under them, which makes them appear to float to me. Especially the one hovering in mid air on the top left. It seems a little odd that the strawberries are so well defined and the saucer or plate is so fuzzy at the edge. If the saucer was sharp in the foreground and fuzzier in the background that would make some sense. Although with such a close up view it is not logical that the saucer edges would be very fuzzy in the foreground, since the strawberries in the middle ground are not fuzzy.

But the strawberries themselves look great! You could almost paint the background completely black and have a stronger painting. It doesn't seem like you are interested in the saucer so why put it in the painting?

The middle landscape has a lot going for it. Strong colors, nice variety of colors masses and shapes, some atmospheric perspective, pretty darn nice.

The last landscape has some problems. The band of white across the center line of the painting is glaring and distracting. White is generally reserved for something you want to draw attention to as a highlight. And even then pure bright white is sometimes just too strong. I'd get rid of the bright white band for sure. It's like staring at nothing. Bright yellow, or red, or violet or anything would look better.

And now the disclaimer, I got my art degree in a Cracker Jack box. So take my crits / advice with a grain of salt.

Strong painting might also mean high contrast painting. Strong colors, strong shadows, strong shapes, or all three. But everything the same contrast, same soft edges, same shapes gets boring. Its hard to pick out a point or center of interest in a painting without some strong variation in one of those 3 elements somewhere. All soft edges, or all hard edges, make Jack a dull painting.

A real man would slap that paint on there hard.... Ha ha just kidding. Sorry, Ol' Bob they got our number I think...

I really don't think this has anything to do with gender. Myself I usually paint non-objective abstracts. So I am highly unqualified to critique these, but that doesn't stop me.

I think it has more to do with taking some time to think about these things. And sometimes for me I can't see these kinds of problems until some time has passed and I go back to look at the painting again. Some people say look at the painting in a mirror as way to get you away from seeing what you expect to see and instead seeing what is actually there. Our minds can fool us on these things pretty well.

[alfreda]

Oldebobe "But the hard fact is that virtually every major gallery that deals in representational art in the USA has 3 to 4 times more men than women painters. Is there a reason for that?"

Yes, and it has nothing to do with lack of ability or strength of work. It's called gender discrimination, but it's slowly changing though, thanks to the attention of the guerrilla girls and critics like Jerry Saltz.


However I do agree with paulsArt "I really don't think this has anything to do with gender." Nope, not at all. This is a problem that many artists face, male and female, a problem with lack of contrast.
Here is a painting with a lack of contrast and fuzzy lines, which is intentional BUT check out that one splash of colour, it makes this painting POP.
I really like what this artist asks: Do You Know How to Create
the Star of Your Painting? in relationship to values and focal point.

[Horsa]

Originally Posted by olde bob

But the hard fact is that virtually every major gallery that deals in representational art in the USA has 3 to 4 times more men than women painters. Is there a reason for that?

Possible reasons:

1) There are 3 to 4 times as many men as women who are painters in the USA.

2) The number of men and women painters is equal, but 3 to 4 times as many men produce gallery quality work.

3) Three to four times as many men approach galleries to get their work shown.

4) Galleries accept 3 to 4 times as many men due to gender bias.

Reasons 1 and 2 are ludicrous and very unlikely to be the case.

Reason 3 is possible, but unlikely today. Women are much more assertive than they were 50 to 100 years ago, and society is much more accepting of this.

Reason 4 is very easy to believe. There have been any number of studies showing that men have an advantage over women simply due to their gender. A classic study was identical items being submitted for evaluation, one with a masculine name attached, one with a feminine name, and one with a gender neutral or ambiguous name attached. In the majority of cases the male name scored higher, even though the items were identical.

Carolyn, your tree is fantastic. It is dynamic, full of tensions. Submit three works that are as exciting as that one and see what happens.

If I were a gallery owner I would want to see something new and different. The usual suspects of still life with fruit, local landscape, etc may be steady sellers, but what sets *you* appart from the other artists? Any painter can produce still life or local landscape. As Bob said of your tree "YOU made it pop." That is why I would buy a Carolyn, something sets it appart. It is not just another pretty picture of a familiar subject.

You definitely have the artistic chops. Go get 'em!

[birdhs]

I just wanted to say thank you for the artists who answered this question. I certainly am going to review my paintings this weekend with an eye to "strong". This has been informative.

Greg

[olde bob]

Originally Posted by Horsa

Possible reasons:

1) There are 3 to 4 times as many men as women who are painters in the USA.

2) The number of men and women painters is equal, but 3 to 4 times as many men produce gallery quality work.

3) Three to four times as many men approach galleries to get their work shown.

4) Galleries accept 3 to 4 times as many men due to gender bias.

Reasons 1 and 2 are ludicrous and very unlikely to be the case.

Reason 3 is possible, but unlikely today. Women are much more assertive than they were 50 to 100 years ago, and society is much more accepting of this.

Reason 4 is very easy to believe. There have been any number of studies showing that men have an advantage over women simply due to their gender. A classic study was identical items being submitted for evaluation, one with a masculine name attached, one with a feminine name, and one with a gender neutral or ambiguous name attached. In the majority of cases the male name scored higher, even though the items were identical.

Carolyn, your tree is fantastic. It is dynamic, full of tensions. Submit three works that are as exciting as that one and see what happens.

If I were a gallery owner I would want to see something new and different. The usual suspects of still life with fruit, local landscape, etc may be steady sellers, but what sets *you* appart from the other artists? Any painter can produce still life or local landscape. As Bob said of your tree "YOU made it pop." That is why I would buy a Carolyn, something sets it appart. It is not just another pretty picture of a familiar subject.

You definitely have the artistic chops. Go get 'em!

but in actuality there are probably about 3 to 4 times as many women painters than there are men in this country. At least if you go by which gender takes painting workshops. I think most people here, who take workshops, will verify that.

I dont want to get into the gender battle, because to me there isnt one. It's simply a matter of recognizing our strengths and weaknesses and compensating where we need to. I cant tell you how many times my wife has been told over the past 20 years, 'you paint like a man' (or a variation of that remark). It used to offend her, but now she understands when they mean and is complimented. Personally, my very favorite artists (the ones I already mentioned) are women who paint boldly because they also have a sensitivity and soul that many men lack. Again, generalities here, of course.