Curating your Bennett Prize 5 Submission

Do you want to apply for The Bennett Prize but are unsure where to start? Overwhelmed by what paintings to submit?

Here are 5 tips to curate your best submission for The Bennett Prize 5! 

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Tip #1: Read the rules

Many of the initial questions you may have can be answered on our website: thebennettprize.com. Visit the “Complete Rules for Entry” page on our website and carefully scrutinize them!

Also, keep these basic guidelines in mind as you look at your body of work and consider what to submit:

• Paintings must have been completed in the past 2-3 years. The expectation for the winner is that she will complete a new body of work for a solo show during the 2-year grant period. If most or all of the works are new, the jurors have a better idea that the artist can meet expectations on production.
• Applicants can submit up to five paintings (a minimum of 3 paintings and one detail). This is an opportunity to showcase a full perspective on your practice and the jurors want you to take advantage of it.
• Make sure all submitted works are consistent. Many entrants submit one very strong work alongside entries of much lower technical or thematic quality. Put your best foot forward and submit your best work.
• The Bennett Prize is a competition for figurative painters, therefore paintings must include a figure and the figure should be an important visual and thematic element. Landscapes and still-lifes do not meet this criteria. Artists have been immediately disqualified for submitting works without figures, or with figures so diminished by scale or style that they are incidental to the paintings.

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Tip #2: Be authentic and tell a story

Jurors respond positively to paintings that tell a story and are cohesive. The story you tell should be unique to you as an artist and resonate with an audience. Your submitted works should elicit an intellectual or emotional response. If your submission is authentic and thought-provoking, you’re on the right track! For example, Bennett Prize 4 winner Amy Werntz’s work tells the forgotten or overlooked daily lives of the elderly. Initially inspired  by her relationship with her grandmother, Werntz’s work evokes both an emotional response from the viewers, who recognize the experiences of their own elderly family members or friends in the paintings. She also raises the question of why the elderly are not depicted more often in artwork? 

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Tip #3: Avoid cliche subject matter

The Bennett Prize receives applications from many accomplished painters each round. However, no matter how talented you are, the use of commonplace subject matter in your work will not advance you in the competition. Artists should be mindful that their paintings need to stand out from comparable works that fill the pages of many nationally published artist magazines. 

A few examples of overused subject matter:

• Nudes on couches/platforms or in the studio/atelier
• “Snapshot” or smartphone domestic scenes of people cooking, sitting on couches, lying in bed, or gathered around a table
• Straightforward portraiture, including sitters in vintage or historic costuming or emphasizing counterculture through clothing and body art
• Children and women with animals

Artists approaching these subjects need to challenge the convention in a unique way – revisiting the above listed subject with your own unique spin (again be authentic to you!) can create a winning submission! For example Bennett Prize Round 1 winner Aneka Ingold’s work is composed of women in historic clothing, women with animals, and nudes. However combining rather unconventional aspects of these categories (women from various historical periods or utilizing odd animals, such as tardigrades or trilobites) creates an unexpected and visually interesting narrative within her work. The viewer is confronted by Ingold’s work rather than comforted by subject matter they have seen before.

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Tip #4: Make sure your subject matter, including nude figures, adds to your work

We are often asked if works submitted can contain nudity. Given the rich tradition of nudity in figurative art, paintings using the nude figure are welcome in Bennett Prize submissions. However, jurors believe that nudity, like any subject matter of a painting, should contribute to the thematic or narrative content of the work. When considering the use of the nude, artists should ask, “Is nudity necessary to the overall composition? Is it adding to the work’s intent?” 

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The Prize is directed to a broad public audience, so artists should not submit works depicting sex acts, nudity of minors/children, or nudity that suggests violence or exploitation. 

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Tip #5: Don’t change your style to match what you think jurors are looking for

If you visit all the artist profiles on our website, you’ll notice that The Bennett Prize supports a range of styles and subjects. Jurors look for craftsmanship and well-honed technical skills. Within an artist’s chosen visual approach (academic realism, photo-realism, impressionism, semi-abstraction, etc.), she should demonstrate the necessary drawing and painting ability to establish a cohesive, well-designed visual whole. Ultimately, the jurors want to see who you are as a figurative realist artist. Catering your submission to what you think the jurors want to see will be detrimental to your application.