RGI reveals drawing competition winners
January 21 2011
Alan Dunlop was on hand at the Glasgow Art Club to doll out the honours, watched by fellow judges Tom Elder, Gary Johnson and Jeremy Armitage.
Taking to the stage Dunlop quoted Alvar Aalto, “God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper,” as he addressed the crowd of drawing enthusiasts assembled to witness the presentation ceremony.
The renowned draughtsman then launched an attack on “super realistic CGI” which has, he noted, “supplanted the drawing as a tool of visualisation.”
Observing that you no longer see drawing boards and set squares in architecture schools Dunlop, himself a part time lecturer, stated that students had become “reluctant” to draw and harbour a “phobia to pick up the pencil”. The architect added “you can never recreate the spirit of a drawing” with CGI.
That being said an impressive 95 entrants put pencil to paper, despite the Christmas convulsions of the Royal Mail, the quality of which were described as “generally really good, the winners exceptional.”
Falling into the latter camp were two entries Dunlop described as “polar opposites of what I’d describe as draughtsmanship.” A joint award handed to Michal Supron’s ‘Cathedral’ and Niall Patterson’s ‘Emergence and Locomotion’.
Sadly Supron’s “masterly” work is still being photographed but Patterson’s surreal sculptural drawing literally stood out amongst the two dimensional fare elsewhere on show. Dunlop remarked of the mistake free nature of the piece: “I have to admire his bottle, I’d never have drawn in ink directly onto water colour paper.”
Meanwhile Patricia Cain, part time curator of the Kelly art gallery, voted with her wallet and purchased Villa Chiericati, by Hutchison, for £175.
A spiders web of threads and beads snake there way above the surface of the drawing
Michael Supron's work was likened to that of an experienc3ed draughtsman of the old school
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6 Comments
#1 Posted by Tom Stewart on 22 Jan 2011 at 14:13 PM
As a student from Aberdeen, I am glad i made the journey down to the opening of the exhibition. I was quite simply blown away with the quality of work on show and am proud that one of my drawings was included in the exhibition.
#2 Posted by Torturous Logic on 22 Jan 2011 at 20:01 PM
I don't know much about this drawing competition, but from what I have read about it, it seems a really good initiative. Well done Tom for entering the competition and here's hoping that competition may become the norm, rather than the exception in the future!
#3 Posted by Ageing Student on 25 Jan 2011 at 10:45 AM
Bit sceptical about this at first, you can't stop the use of computer in practice nor the influence of SketchUp. But went to see the exhibition yesterday. Drawings on display in the Kelly Gallery though range from decent to incredible! Hope it turns into a regular event as suggested
#4 Posted by Craig Stuart on 29 Jan 2011 at 15:27 PM
I am also a student who entered this competition and was lucky enough to be selected. I went down for the private viewing and the level of work was astounding, the varying approaches taken and thought behind much of the work was fantastic. It was well worth the trip to see.
#5 Posted by David Stott on 1 Feb 2011 at 15:51 PM
I was unable to attend the private viewing, but was very pleased to hear my work had been selected for the exhibition. Having seen some photographs from the event it seems there has been some excellent work produced. I hope there will be similar competitions in the future.
#6 Posted by piotr on 3 Feb 2011 at 08:49 AM
congratulation Micha?!
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