Not long after Gerry Coles started her printmaking career, she attended a reduction printing workshop where her tutor mentioned that her work had been exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. This led to an ongoing pursuit of getting into the show, which has seen Gerry go through many ups and downs, until her recent success in 2024 where her piece, Clarinet: lines and spaces, is being exhibited.
Gerry tells us; “At that time [of the workshop] I was blissfully unaware of the existence of the world’s largest, oldest (since1769) open submission exhibition and what it might mean to exhibit at it. She told me that she had achieved success with one of her very early linocuts and I listened to this news with eyes wide like saucers – how could I fail to be inspired?” She went home from the workshop with some great prints, a head buzzing with new knowledge, but also, crucially (and turns out mistakenly), the notion that Royal Academy success awaited just round the corner for her.
That summer, Gerry decided to take a trip to London to see for herself what the Summer Exhibition was all about; “There was so much on display: different genres, styles, mediums, sizes. The Amazing, the Good, the Bad, the Indifferent, the Over-priced, the Bizarre – quite overwhelming -16000 initial entries whittled down to around 2000 on display.”
The next year, when January came round, she paid for two entries and set about printing and selecting what would go in. After some shenanigans trying to photograph her work accurately and getting her entry in, when the shortlist decision date in March came around, Gerry was “genuinely deflated” to find that she hadn’t got in. “The realisation dawned – it wasn’t going to be that easy.”
In 2018 she repeated the process; Entry – Print – Hope – Disappointment. And then the next year 2019, something different; her print, Three Fine Fellows, was shortlisted. She took the print to London for judging in person by the selection committee. Gerry states; “I got the print framed and spent a jolly day in London handing it in combined with a spot of shopping. Then a couple of weeks later I had to reverse the process, as it was judged surplus to requirements, rejected, and I needed to collect it again. Ah well, nothing ventured nothing gained. My small dream of exhibiting with the chosen few had lasted a little longer than usual, but I was still back to square one.”
The next years followed a familiar pattern; Entry – Print – Hope – Disappointment. In 2024, when January rolled around once more, Gerry bought two entries as usual and then set about deciding on and printing them. 2024’s theme was “making space”, so Gerry got to work creating some new pieces. Her first entry, Spaces We Call Home, was a single colour print of various creatures and the underground spaces they inhabit. However, her second entry didn’t go to plan, and Gerry wasn’t happy when the piece was completed and the colours weren’t right. With little time to start again, she instead looked back at some of her previous creations. She had recently made a piece that featured a clarinet as a birthday present for her good friend, and Gerry quickly realised that it could actually work with the theme. She tweaked the title to include reference to spaces, so it became Clarinet: lines and spaces, a reference that worked on more than one level: the lines and spaces of the musical stave EGBDF FACE, the physical arrangement of the clarinet in the print in lines with spaces in between, and also the structural rods (lines) and finger holes (spaces) on the clarinet.
When she received notification that it had been shortlisted it was good news but also “cautious jubilation”, as she’d been down this road before. A few weeks after delivering the piece to London, Gerry received news that the application was successful and her print would be in the show! “I was thrilled and slightly stunned ( we’re talking bucket list territory here),” says the printmaker.
Gerry was also invited to Varnishing Day, which traditionally was the point at which paintings were finished off with varnish and then deemed complete and ready for public viewing. The day started with a steel band procession to St James’s church Piccadilly where there was a service of thanks for the artists and the exhibition. Gerry recollects; “One genuinely moving moment was when Rev Lepine asked for a round of applause for those exhibiting for the first time. What started with polite clapping ended with a joyous wave of cheering and riotous applause for us first timers.”
They then proceeded to the Royal Academy at Burlington House for the main event where, as Gerry puts it; “All everyone wanted to do was a) to have a glass of bubbly and b) find out where they were hung, so it was a case of hunt the waiter and hunt the exhibit.” She hunted down her print, with the help of the guide, in the Large Weston Room, which is painted bright blue and curated by Cornelia Parker. Gerry describes; “Everyone was pretty much doing the same thing, getting a picture of themselves pointing at their work with a big grin on their face, and I was no exception.” She continues; “…All I can say is it felt totally brilliant to be a part of the exhibition this year.”
Gerry concludes; “If you get a chance to visit it’s a splendid riot of colour and spectacle and you won’t be disappointed… It is always going to be a huge melting pot of something for everyone, go with an open mind and pick your favourite artwork, I’ll guarantee it represents someone’s hopes and dreams – the artist will be as delighted to be exhibiting there as I am.”
You can find Gerry’s print on display in the bright blue Large Weston Room at the Royal Academy of Arts for the duration of the Summer Exhibition, June 18th – August 18th.
www.gerrycolesprints.co.uk
@gerrycolesprints
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