Charlie Kirkham

1. It doesn’t fit with the exhibition theme

Let’s break this down. The exhibition is advertised as being about ‘blue paintings’ so you’ve submitted your best blue painting. When it doesn’t get accepted you feel thwarted. Take a breath. There are often sub-themes that a selector is focusing on. Every curator, judge or selector has their own set of interests. Take the ‘Blue Paintings’ show, the selector wants to focus on highlighting issues around wildlife, this is a sub-theme for the show. In this case all the blue paintings they select will reflect their passion for wildlife. You could submit the best painting ever of a fire station, but it doesn’t fit with the selector’s interests so it won’t get into the show.

Even with careful research into the selection panel an artist cannot always predict what the sub-themes will be. If the artwork doesn’t match the interests of the selectors it will not be accepted into the art show.

2. It’s the wrong size

Every exhibition has guidelines on what size works can be submitted, which, of course, you have followed to the letter. Often artists assume that bigger artwork has more chance of being selected. It’s true that usually exhibitions use large pieces as centre points, surrounded by smaller artworks.  Having said that, every exhibition venue has a finite amount of space. The selector may love your big artwork but if they’re running low on space they cannot take it. Open Exhibitions are designed to include lots of artists. It helps market the show and gives more artists the opportunity to exhibit in prestigious venues. Every time a large work is accepted that means two or three smaller works are rejected. If you submitted a big artwork that didn’t get in, it’s likely space is at a premium.

Conversely, very small work can also suffer, particularly in physical selection processes. If the selectors have only 5 seconds per work to decide, smaller works may simply be overlooked due to lack of time to get up close. This is thankfully less of an issue now that selection is primarily digital. The exhibition has to appear harmonious and very small artwork can be difficult to hang next to standard sized works. If you work at a miniature scale framing multiple works together in a standard sized frame can reduce this pain point for the exhibition team and increase the chances of an acceptance.

3. It looks a lot like someone else’s artwork

Sometimes you’ll submit work for a show which will be thematically or visually similar to other artists submissions. For example, you submit a stunning charcoal landscape of a mountain range. Unbeknown to you, two other artists have also produced beautiful charcoal landscapes of mountain ranges. Imagine this, the selectors have three equally amazing pictures all on the same subject in the same medium. Exhibitions need variety, so they decide to choose just one of the three pictures.

At this point to help the decision the selectors might read through you Artist CV, Bio or artwork description.  Perhaps they’re in a rush and they simply pick the one they saw first or take a vote on which one to choose. Either way, it is not a reflection on the quality of the artwork. If you see an artwork that is visually similar to your own submission in the final exhibition, there’s a good chance this is the reason for the rejection.

4. The artwork doesn’t align with the sponsors

Exhibition sponsors and venues have their own ideas. For example, a sponsor with a commitment to sustainability might ask the art show selectors not include artworks created using non-recycled plastics. If you submit an artwork created using new plastic it will not be accepted, no matter how accomplished it is. In addition to the sponsors the exhibition venue has a right of veto. If an exhibition venue is unhappy with a selected work because they think it will garner bad press they can ask for it to not be included in an exhibition. An example of this would be a family friendly venue requesting that adult themed art is not included in the art show.

5. You have other artworks in the exhibition*

When you submit multiple artworks it’s totally normal to have some of them rejected. That doesn’t mean you don’t still feel a tiny bit sad that your favourite piece didn’t get in. It’s still painful when works don’t get accepted, especially when you can’t publicly admit to feeling disappointed because it looks like sour grapes. While you’re celebrating the work that did get accepted remember that the idea of Open Exhibitions is to include lots of artists. It is a very rare, highly commendable achievement to have multiple works selected for the same show.

*but I only submitted one artwork…

I get it, submitting multiple artworks to Open Calls quickly becomes expensive. It’s typically around £15 per entry. If you’ve only submitted one artwork it is even harder when it’s rejected. You feel like it’s a personal attack on your artistic ability. It isn’t. Honestly, think about it, if you’d have put three works forward maybe one of the other two would have been a perfect fit.