The annual Texaco Children’s Art Competition specifies that ‘your entry… can be about anything that interests you’. Looking at the selection of works that emerged following the adjudication process, that turns out to be the human face, usually in a closely framed, optically distorted view strongly reminiscent of the cameras on smartphones and tablets. The entries consisted largely of a series of headshots – portrait-format images of heads, whether of the artist themselves or someone else.
An aspiration towards Photorealism dominates, largely eclipsing the expression of individual creative personality. An attraction to hyperreality is consistently characteristic of younger artists, often allied with the moody introspection that is part of the adolescent experience. Younger artists also, year on year, have a related, curious, rapt fascination with hair and with the lines of furrowed brows and wrinkled skin. That fascination is as evident as ever here.
To be sure, there is an impressive level of ability on view, with some outstanding examples. There’s real spirit and skill in Amélie McAndrew’s upward-looking figure. And Megan Hogan’s drawing is a very good piece of work by any standard. It’s one of several comparable pieces – including work by Mae Cowper Gray, Abigail McCarthy and Daniel Walsh – but probably has the edge in terms of embodying a sense of the artist’s individuality.
But overall, what a limited, claustrophobic world is presented! Does no one ever venture outdoors? Only the youngest entrants, it seems, their imaginations still unbounded. Witness Hannah Daly’s study of a cow. This lack of a wider world and the challenge it presents in terms of composing images, this lack of any awareness of composition, even, is surely down to the mobile phone, with its focus on the lone individual.
Perhaps it’s time to be more specific than ‘anything’ with the categories, to suggest such areas as landscape, environment, groups of figures, even abstraction. The Texaco Children’s Art Competition is a great institution, a good thing, but a new impetus is needed.
Aidan Dunne.
Image: Hannah Daly
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