POSTCARD OPEN CALL
THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED
OUR TOWN – An Art Postcard Competition
The theme for this postcard competition is Our Town. It is a national competition where we ask people in towns around Britain to record the places they live, with a focus on:
A/ Buildings
B/ Landscape
C/ People
D/ Statues
We want you to document buildings that mean something to you in your local high street and further afield in the local surrounding areas where you might find impressive structures such as viaducts and chimneys, relics of Victorian industrialisation.
Perhaps you’d like to draw attention to something being demolished. Maybe something is being erected or having a change of use that you think would make a good subject. Maybe it’s a local hero whose statue stands in the heart of your town or on a hill everyone can see. Then again, maybe it's someone living and breathing, an unsung hero who does a lot for the community with little reward or recognition.
Perhaps your town has within it a site of natural beauty with rivers and lakes that contain all manner of flora and fauna.
We’re looking for drawings and paintings that demonstrate what is beautiful, vulgar, funny, serious, noble or perhaps what’s just ordinary and commonplace about your town. Whether it is important local heritage that you want to showcase or one of those so-called carbuncles that gets everyone talking, we want to see your art on a postcard.
Apply by 11.59pm on Friday 26 May 2023.
The cost to enter is £11. You will then receive a postcard in the post and a self addressed envelope in which you can return your completed artwork.
Additional postcard entries will be charged at £5 per entry. There is a maximum of thirty entries per order.
NYAS charges for entry because we are an entirely unfunded organisation but we have a track record of mounting seriously good exhibitions where visual organisation and impeccable art handling is put at the forefront of everything we do. Your money doesn't go towards holidays and fancy clothes. It all goes back into our business. So, thank you in advance.
A blank postcard (or postcards) will be posted the week commencing 29 May 2023.
Completed postcards must be returned in the stamped addressed envelope provided, to be received by Monday 10 July 2023.
Winning submissions will be announced by Friday 28 July 2023.
Up to 20 entries will be selected for exhibition which will open Friday 4 August 2023.
Winning entries will be framed by NYAS in a standard uniform frame to be exhibited and sold in the NYAS shop. The artist will receive £100 if their work is sold (70% commission).
Prints and greetings cards of winning entries will be made available to sell in the NYAS shop.
Where items are sold, artists will receive a monthly commission from NYAS as follows:
Greetings Card £1.
A4 print £6.50.
A3 print £9.50.
A2 print £14.50
Depending on how they scale up, winning entries may or may not be made available as large prints.
The winning entry will be announced on the evening of the exhibition opening on Friday 4 August 2023.
The winning artist will be invited to work on a future project with NYAS.
Rules
This is a painting and drawing competition but you can use any medium you like on your postcard, within reason.
Works must not be created separately on a piece of paper and then stuck down onto your postcard.
You must use the postcard sent out to you that has on it its own serial number.
Works can be no larger than the size of a single postcard which is 14.8cm x 10.5cm. This means postcards cannot be attached side-by-side to make larger works.
Collage is acceptable but must not exceed the edge of the postcard and must not be thicker than 5mm.
Please ensure all elements are firmly secure before sending your postcard. Any parts that are missing or coming away from the postcard will result in disqualification.
Works can be signed on the front or back of your postcard. Postcards without signatures are acceptable.
Do not bend your postcard.
Postcards must not be framed.