More and more nowadays an unfortunate reality in the art world is the fact that freehand representational drawing seems to be seen as a bit of a poor relation compared to other styles and mediums. Clear indications of this are the difference in prize money offered in competitive art shows, in fact less and less art shows all the time even offer a drawing category. There are a relatively small number of competitive art exhibitions that actually concentrate on drawing rather than painting but they seem to mostly favour non-representational styles.
Fed Through the Baffling Machine
Even more apparent (to me anyway) is the ever increasing prevalence across the board of that mystifying word “contemporary” which is added to all kinds of art, art shows, and gallery names. By definition the word means modern or the current style/latest thing but when connected to art almost invariably translates into “abstract” or even “altogether indecipherable”. I’m not for a second claiming that it’s not art or even that it’s not good art. I learnt long ago that art is