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00:00Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:15Ahoy there! Welcome to HMS Wellington.
00:18This mighty ship hasn't seen action since 1945,
00:21but that's all about to change.
00:24All aboard!
00:25It's a brand new episode of Landscape Artist of the Year.
00:30On the River Thames in London,
00:33eight new artists are setting off into uncharted waters.
00:38This is a cityscape,
00:39and there are currently no buildings in my painting,
00:42so, yeah, a little bit stressed.
00:45With their hands on the tiller are our esteemed judges.
00:49Independent curator Kathleen Soriano,
00:52director of Freeze London Ava Longre,
00:55and award-winning artist Taishan Schierenberg.
00:59Isn't TV art mad?
01:01It is absolutely bonking.
01:02It's been non-stop.
01:04Also on board are wildcards,
01:07each with their own particular take on today's view.
01:11This is the toilet porthole, Stephen.
01:13OK. But it's good that you're looking out.
01:15It is, rather than in. Yeah, absolutely.
01:18A life-changing prize awaits this year's winner,
01:21a £10,000 commission for the National Gallery of Ireland
01:25to travel to County Mayo and paint Crowpatrick,
01:28the country's holy mountain.
01:32So who will keep their head above water?
01:35I asked myself for this challenge,
01:37so I have to do it now.
01:39Nearly there.
01:41And who will be swept away?
01:44I try not to think what's in that water, because...
01:46Yeah. You see a few things floating by.
01:48Yeah, I...
02:10Today, eight artists are embarking on a landscape painting adventure.
02:15Have you been doing this a long time?
02:17Not painting on a boat. How about yourself?
02:19This will be your first time.
02:22They are...
02:23Libby Walker, an illustrator from Glasgow.
02:27Norwegian United Nations investigator Michael Gibb.
02:32Tom Winter, an artist and tutor from Bournemouth.
02:36And from Manchester, oil painter Amanda Mulquiney.
02:40Taking part in Landscape Artist of the Year means everything to me.
02:44I'm petrified, nervous, excited.
02:47Yeah, I just can't believe the day's finally here.
02:50So you're looking forward to it?
02:51Yeah, yeah.
02:53Be good when it gets started.
02:54Yeah.
02:55All this sort of lead up.
02:56It makes you a bit nervous.
02:58Also taking part...
03:00Lucy Bristow, a massage therapist and painter from Brighton.
03:04Chinese printmaker and author Viola Wang.
03:07Andrew Briggs, an IT data architect from Derbyshire.
03:12And from Surrey, documentary director Nicola Tremaine.
03:17I have never painted on a ship before, so I don't know how steady my hands gonna be.
03:21All my stomach, to be honest with you, so...
03:26The rocking ship isn't the only thing that could make our artists green around the gills today.
03:32With space on deck in short supply, for the first time ever in a heat, we've left the pods behind.
03:40Today we're really in the element, and there are sunshine and the wind and the sound around.
03:47So this is going to be the biggest on plein air challenge I ever did.
03:52Oh dear. Sorry.
03:55It's the unpredictability.
03:56It did sort of dictate what sort of thing I was gonna paint on,
04:00because I was worried it was gonna blow away in the wind without the pods.
04:04Being from Glasgow, I'm used to being in a space where it could be raining one second and bright sunny the next.
04:09So I'm ready to get going.
04:18Artists be warned.
04:19All those who haven't completed their artwork within four hours will be made to walk the plank.
04:25And your time starts now.
04:33Today our artists are positioned along the port side of HMS Wellington,
04:38a former Royal Navy ship moored at London's Victoria Embankment.
04:43Across a busy stretch of the Thames, they're confronted by the sweeping panorama of the South Bank,
04:50with its assortment of architectural styles and structures stretching from beyond the Shard in the east to the London Eye in the west.
04:59It's a really exciting view. There's a lot of surfaces reflecting that light from the sky and making those all agree I think is going to be really important.
05:08It's a case of sort of trying to edit down and paint the thing that probably most impresses on me.
05:14All that sort of area. Yeah. Don't know exactly yet.
05:18When I paint landscape, I will like to get things proportionally correct. So it's more about good composition rather than it just being a pretty picture.
05:36IT professional Andrew Briggs discovered his creative side during lockdown by taking online oil painting lessons.
05:50Building his composition in dark tones before applying thick oils.
05:54He painted his submission from a photograph taken on a blustery day in the South Downs.
06:01Andrew, welcome to the craziness that is a landscape artist of the year.
06:07Let's quickly talk about your bucolic submission, beautiful greens.
06:11It feels very liberating and sort of verdant and we brought you to the centre of the great metropolis.
06:15Have you worked in an urban environment?
06:18Uh, no.
06:20But the one thing I look for is a strong composition.
06:24Oh, okay.
06:25And we're afforded with a lot of strong compositions.
06:28The bones of the painting are already there and it works already, so obviously you're not that uncomfortable.
06:33No, I guess that's a carryover from photography. I like photography, so I'm looking for strong composition.
06:39Well, it's a great start.
06:40Yeah, thank you.
06:45I work as an illustrator and use a lot of small, pen-detailed artwork, but when I'm painting, my brush strokes are a lot looser.
06:58Illustrator Libby Walker's lyrical painting style sits in stark contrast to the meticulous drawings she produces at her 9 to 5.
07:07Working alla prima in water-mixable oils, her submission shows a summery tangle of undergrowth in Glasgow's Pollock Park.
07:16Libby, what I really loved about the submission was that you were right down in there amongst the vegetation.
07:20There's a lot of organic form.
07:22Yes.
07:23But this is very sort of architectural, it's very, very precise.
07:25Yeah.
07:26I mean, do you have to adapt your style when you're painting?
07:29So the challenge here is to try and keep the loose abstract shapes rather than the lines that I'm used to as an illustrator.
07:35Yeah, yeah, yeah.
07:36So, yeah.
07:37So is there a sort of different part of your brain that operates when you're painting?
07:40Yes, definitely.
07:41The fun part.
07:42The fun part.
07:43The fun part.
07:54So, Ty, we've looked at water a lot.
07:56Yes.
07:57We've never been on it before.
07:58No.
07:59I mean, I love the fact that we're on a boat on the main artery of this great city.
08:05I mean, it's incredibly noisy, it's incredibly busy, it's full of people, it's the hub of entertainment, culture, commerce.
08:12I mean, it's really exciting.
08:13And they're not in their pods.
08:14They're not in their pods.
08:16It has a certain freedom, the sky is open, they have this whole view.
08:20Right.
08:21To choose from.
08:22But where do you go?
08:23I mean, you can't, there's too much, I mean, it's huge.
08:24Yeah.
08:25But it is about rhythm, it's about finding a way to make something feel monumental or vast.
08:32Yeah.
08:33With meaning, so there's a lot for them to work with.
08:36I know you and your boats and paintings, it's a very complex relationship.
08:41But here we are, we're on one.
08:43Yes.
08:44We're surrounded by them.
08:45But they're not pleasure craft for the high and mighty.
08:48Right.
08:49This is a horrible river and they're all working and it's real.
08:52Yeah.
08:53I like that.
08:54I love it, yeah, you're a real, you're a real man of the people.
09:03I almost wanted to work something contra to all the blues and the greys really.
09:10And obviously the yellow sort of breaks it, fragments it a bit for me.
09:14Yeah.
09:15An art tutor and painter with over 30 years experience, Tom Winter's work is characterised
09:21by his bold approach to colour.
09:24His vibrant submission in oils built up gradually in semi-translucent layers to pick scaffolding
09:31erected at his children's school.
09:33Hi Tom.
09:34Hello.
09:35Hi.
09:36So tell me about your day so far.
09:39You're going for super bright, right?
09:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:41Lots of yellow highlights.
09:42Well it's trying to break up all the slatey greys really.
09:44Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:45So the yellow is nice as a contrast with the purples and the blues.
09:48So it's not overwhelmingly dystopian.
09:51So Tom, tell us a bit more about your submission.
09:55It feels like you're working with oils but you're working with very thin, almost transparent
09:59layers.
10:00Yeah.
10:01The blending of the colours feels like it's happening in the actual layering of the paint.
10:05Yeah.
10:06So that's how I did the scaffolding.
10:07So, yeah.
10:16I'm drawn to the natural world and how man interacts within the natural world.
10:22So sort of a man versus nature type thing.
10:25Lucy Bristow, a massage therapist from Brighton, is inspired by the contrasts found at
10:31the point where urban life meets the countryside.
10:35Her submission, rendered in acrylics with large expressive brush strokes, shows a view
10:40through foliage of a hotel where she stayed on a recent trip.
10:45So Lucy, night scene, lots of trees, beautifully painted.
10:51Here we are in the bright sunlight, wobbling around on a ship.
10:54I mean, it's a real contrast, isn't it?
10:56Yes.
10:57And today's view, you're committed to your composition already.
10:59Yes.
11:00You know exactly what's going in it.
11:01Yes.
11:02And for the view straight across the river here at the National Theatre.
11:06I love that contrast between all the straight lines and angles and then the roundness of the trees.
11:11I find that interesting.
11:12Nice.
11:13Nothing wrong with that.
11:14Boarding HMS Wellington, also ready to tackle today's vista, a 25-strong crew of wildcard artists.
11:24I don't think I've ever painted on a ship before, but there's a real buzz and it's just a joy to be here.
11:39Usually, if I'm painting, we're going to Brittany a lot and I'll use the sea water, but I don't think I'll be using the Thames water.
11:46If any of them come up smelling of roses, they could have the chance of a pod place in this year's semi-final.
11:54So, Jean, what window is it?
11:56Oh, this is the toilet porthole, Stephen.
11:58The toilet porthole.
11:59It is.
12:00OK.
12:01Well, it's good that you're looking out.
12:03It is, rather than in.
12:04Yeah.
12:05Yeah, absolutely.
12:06Up on deck, our artists are already an hour into their task.
12:19Time is flying past quite fast.
12:21There's a lot happening, but I'm actually really enjoying the paint in a very painterly way and what it's doing.
12:26So, illustration is going out the window today.
12:29I mean, just the Indian yellow.
12:33It's quite nice.
12:34It's got a bit of depth to it.
12:35I feel more confident when I sort of, you know, get some more down, really, but I think it's fun, actually.
12:44So, I've gone from composition to now applying the colour.
12:48I'm OK at the moment.
12:50No panic setting yet.
12:59On board HMS Wellington in London, eight artists, podless and buffeted by the wind coming off the river, are competing for a place in this year's semi-final.
13:12And our next is charting a course all of their own.
13:16I have bought my printing press with me today.
13:21I'm a printmaker and this is my great companion.
13:26Viola Wang specialises in printmaking using recyclable materials.
13:32First tracing her composition onto kitchen foil to produce a printing plate, she'll then apply ink and feed it through a press to create the image.
13:42This may come as a surprise to our judges as her submission is a pastel sketch of London's Leadenhall Market.
13:50So, I love the submission because it was so full of colour, it was chaotic, it was really, really busy,
13:55but today it's a completely different medium.
13:57What are you trying to show us?
13:59I think it's a great opportunity to actually do printmaking outdoors.
14:03I think it's a great challenge.
14:05But what I'm seeing here is something that's very pared back, quite clean and quite clear.
14:12Is that what the end product will look like or will you bring your crazy busyness to it as well?
14:18I think I can't avoid the crazy busyness.
14:21Okay. And I can see lots of paints ready to go on.
14:24Yeah.
14:25How many times are you going to run it through the press do you think?
14:27Um, I'm going to build the image layer by layer.
14:30Okay.
14:31So, I think I'll start with three.
14:33Great. Very exciting.
14:35I enjoy simplifying more complicated scenes, so I tend to shy away from extreme detail
14:49and really try and distill down what I think the most important components of that are
14:53and convey it in a way that's painterly but still sort of recognisable.
14:56When not deployed to war-torn countries in his role as a UN investigator,
15:02Michael Gibb finds peace in front of an easel.
15:05His submission, rendered in his distinctive simplified style,
15:09portrays residential tower blocks in Oslo, the city in which he grew up.
15:15The submission is clearly not from here.
15:18It felt northern European.
15:21It felt different.
15:23Yeah.
15:24Yeah, I really like to simplify.
15:26And have you found in this business here things you can manipulate the way you want to?
15:32Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, lovely sort of organic shadows from the trees.
15:36And then behind it you've got the National Theatre with sort of big brutalists,
15:39very geometric shapes.
15:40So perfect for you.
15:41Yeah, in a way.
15:42Like, I like to paint in gouache and gouache has this sort of matte, sort of flat texture
15:48which offers this opportunity to leave yourself just with the sort of real essence of the image or the scene.
15:53Well, you know, I'm not allowed to say this because I'm a judge, but I think the beginning is looking absolutely fabulous.
15:59So I don't know how you work more on it without messing it up.
16:03The ship our artists are on today, HMS Wellington, has been a fixture on the Thames since it was moored here after the Second World War.
16:15Launched in 1934 with a crew of 107 men, the ship was originally commissioned for the Royal Navy New Zealand and named after the country's capital.
16:25But a few years later, the Wellington took on a different role.
16:29In 1939, the war drums in Europe were beginning to rumble.
16:33And she, along with her sister Imperial patrol ships, were recovered to UK to begin their duties.
16:39The Wellington was deployed to the waters off West Africa, where it protected vital trade routes, earning its nickname, the Good Shepherd.
16:51She steamed over 250,000 miles and escorted over 103 convoys of heavily laden merchant ships whose goods and produce would not have made it to UK without the efforts of this ship.
17:03The Wellington also rescued hundreds of personnel.
17:07The cargo liner Highland Patriot was torpedoed off Ireland in 1940, and this ship rescued 169 passengers and crew from her.
17:18She also took part in the evacuation of the British Army and Normandy, and she shared the surrender of a U-boat off Gibraltar in 1945.
17:27After the war, HMS Wellington was saved from the scrap heap by a London livery company who employed it as their headquarters.
17:35Then, 20 years ago, it was repurposed one final time.
17:40In 2005, the Wellington Trust charity was formed to preserve and maintain the ship and to explain her role in the Battle of the Atlantic.
17:49And, of course, she's now open to the public.
17:51I'd say my style is semi-abstract. I never start painting with a plan, so it will evolve on the canvas, and I'll just maybe play around a little bit and then just see where it takes me.
18:19This is Nicola Tremaine's first time painting an urban landscape.
18:26Applying paint broadly with large decorator brushes before working more finely into the surface, her submission, an abstract view of her Surrey garden, was produced over multiple sittings.
18:38So, Nicola, let's talk a bit about your submission. There's a strangeness to it. This view, is this a real landscape?
18:46So, it started as an abstract, and then it started to resemble the view from my bedroom of the garden, with the fields beyond, so I just decided to lean into that.
18:56So, is this normally how you paint, and then how does that work today?
19:01So, the composition has to come together much more quickly.
19:05I need to start to bring in the abstract feel of some of the elements of what's actually in front of me.
19:10But, yeah, it's a challenge. It's a different way of painting for me, so it's tough.
19:15They look like they're having a nice time, don't they?
19:18I would say I'm a colourist at heart, so whatever I'm doing, whether it's a portrait, still alive, I just love a pop of colour whenever I can.
19:38Amanda Mulquini recently resigned from her marketing job to pursue a career as an artist.
19:45Her bold oil landscape of reflections on Lake Garda in Italy should stand her in good stead today, but she'll need to work fast.
19:54It took her 18 hours to complete.
19:57So, Amanda, we love the very large slice and the heat you've got in the landscape. How does one do that?
20:07It's kind of a chartreuse-like lime green that I've kind of popped in throughout, and that wasn't really there, so I kind of ramp it up a little bit.
20:13Ah, yeah, that's very good, because I was thinking today's colours aren't very poppy, but everything from the murky brown of the water to the grey concrete, is colour important to you?
20:25Colour's so important. It's like the thing that I look for in everything that I'm working with and always try and get like a punch of bright colour in there somewhere.
20:32Down in steerage, our wildcards are bringing the full range of their creativity to bear on today's view.
20:42Gary, in the wildcards, I'm a sucker for any new or weird technique. What are you doing with all these bits of tape?
20:50Well, basically, I'm trying to mix up little bits of hard edge with something a bit more fluid. I quite like geometry and painting anyway, but I've never been in the centre of London painting this huge amount of buildings before.
21:02No. So this is all new.
21:10Sherry, we've given you this fantastic vista, and you've gone for sort of grubby corner, old-school Y.
21:20Oh, there's something about the colour of the brick that I've picked there. That's really nice that that came out.
21:24That is very nice, yeah. Well, look, it looks great. Evocative, the working river. It's fabulous.
21:30Shazia. Yes. How are you doing?
21:36I'm okay. It's coming along. It's just a lovely scene.
21:39It's a lovely scene. Do you ever go mudlarking?
21:42No. I love it. You never know what you're going to find. It's a bit like coming down to the wildcards. You never know what you're going to find.
21:49Back on the foredeck, with two hours of the competition now gone, our artists are finding their way.
22:05At the moment, I'm introducing colour into the composition. I don't really know what's going to happen yet. Just try to keep my head clear and then just keep going.
22:17I am so far behind where I would like to be at this point. And this is insane. Like, this is a cityscape and there are currently no buildings in my painting. So, yeah, a little bit stressed.
22:31So, I've just been ramping up the colours to try and make it a bit more exciting because it's quite muted, but it's looking a bit too much, actually, in places. I'm just really struggling right now.
22:46Aboard HMS Wellington, eight artists are depicting a busy stretch of the Thames. Exposed to the elements and with the tide now rising, all they can do is go with the flow.
23:12Pretty much everything has changed. That's the thing about working, obviously, on a boat with changing tides. So, it's trying to get a sort of combination of all the different elements which first attracted me to this view, really.
23:29I came with a bit of a game plan. I haven't really stuck to it. I've just put down every colour, mainly because the light keeps changing, but I'm feeling reasonably relaxed compared to what I expected at this point.
23:43Trees are my happy place. So, I've managed to get a few of those in, but the river at the moment I'm having a bit of a struggle with. I need to just focus on it. It's been a bit of an afterthought so far.
23:54For printmaker Viola, having now etched and inked up her foil plates, it's time to pull her first set of prints.
24:07Viola, so we've got two colours down, the green and the blue.
24:12Yep.
24:13So, how many of those initial prints have you got?
24:15Six. So, this is layer one. So, we have the water and the sky.
24:21I love your mark-making. You can keep it very painterly, can't you?
24:25Yes, you can.
24:26Well, I'll let you get on with it.
24:27Thanks.
24:28It's an unusual day, isn't it? Because being on a ship, we don't have the pods. And it is very sunny, it's very bright. And also, I think the nautical term is windy.
24:44Yeah, I mean, it's like gladiators for artists, isn't it? You know, here we are, sort of swaying backwards and forwards. So, it's a really big challenge, I think, we've given them.
24:53So, Nicola has never painted a building before. How's she going on?
24:57Yeah, I think Nicola's having problems. Her submission was very rich and organic. This is, in its way, is very ordered. And she has vast amounts of sky to fill and lots of water.
25:10And it's very difficult to react to nothingness in a painterly way.
25:15I really love Nicola's brushwork. I think there's a lovely abstraction to her painting. And it's quite nice to see her just almost suggesting the presence of the buildings rather than actually defining them.
25:26Libby's an illustrator by trade, but her painting style is fairly loose. How's she getting on with the junction between those two things today?
25:33Yeah, I think Libby's work is very lyrical. She's just found a beauty in the landscape that I certainly don't see.
25:39I mean, it's full of poetry. I think it's gorgeous.
25:41I think it's a challenge for her being in this context, you know, someone whose work naturally feels really organic.
25:47But we're still going to get a painting that's going to have that similar feeling, and somehow it's going to come out of this very urban landscape.
25:55Michael must have skipped for joy when you put him in front of the National Theatre.
26:00Well, basically, it's a playground for him. He's got this brutalist architecture of the South Bank, which completely lends itself to that play with volumes, shadows and blocks.
26:10It's made London look very clean.
26:12No, but Michael's shtick is simplification.
26:15Yeah.
26:16There were some really interesting things happening early on, and now it's become more literal.
26:20So I'm hoping he will simplify even further and we'll get that edge back.
26:25Amanda's clearly interested in color. Is she finding the right ones today?
26:30Yeah, she found little kicks of color that really make it sink.
26:35I think the whole thing is very strong, and so does the bird.
26:40I find with Amanda everything's just a little bit too far away.
26:43That's a heavyweight skyline. You know, Tate's in there next to the Shard.
26:47But I feel like I just want to get a little bit closer.
26:50So Viola's probably suffered the most not having a pod, causing her all sorts of difficulties.
26:55Is she overcoming them?
26:56It's just hard to know, isn't it? You can't possibly tell at this stage because so much of it is hidden.
27:01The anticipation of what's going to be revealed has me on tenterhooks.
27:05I loved her pastel drawing.
27:07There was a looseness to her mark-making, but it did coalesce into an image that was easily readable.
27:12At the moment, the print isn't doing that.
27:14But we always have that with printmakers. You can't tell to the very last pull of the day.
27:18Lucy feels like she's just having a great time, really enjoying herself.
27:22Are you enjoying looking at her painting?
27:24I really like where it's going. I think she was drawn to this particular corner of the landscape,
27:29because this is where you can really feel that connection between the built environment and nature.
27:36So I enjoy this tension and how she's resolving those two things there.
27:40Yeah.
27:41I worry about the pink ground, because she didn't do that in her submission.
27:46And I just worry that the pink is going to be a bit distracting.
27:49Andrew, working just below us here, can you tell where it's going?
27:53Yes, he's got a good composition.
27:56The eye is led in from the right with the far river bank.
28:01But it's become very topographical.
28:03I agree. I felt like Andrew's submission was all about movement.
28:06And then, of course, today he's really focused on the buildings and he's approaching them in a really static way.
28:13So I'm not sure where this is going to go.
28:15That yellow looks like it's staying on Tom's painting.
28:18Good. I thought that the underpainting was just sublime.
28:23Yeah.
28:24The whole thing was alive and vibrant.
28:26And then the realistic colours started being put in.
28:29And I just, I felt sad for the yellow painting.
28:32But what you get with Tom is this incredibly powerful thrust,
28:37partly to do with the format he's gone with,
28:39but it's partly to do with the dynamism and the energy that he's got sort of going over that side of the river.
28:46It's getting windier, isn't it?
28:47What?
28:48I can't hear you.
28:53Nicola, the London Eye is just such a sort of cheesy symbol, isn't it?
29:08Yeah.
29:09But you've suggested it in a really beautiful way.
29:11Oh, thanks.
29:12Are you going to go in and poke it about a little bit more or are you just going to leave it?
29:16Oh, it's hard to know because when I poke about I've got the tendency to lose something.
29:21You shift the balance.
29:22Yeah.
29:23So it feels quite balanced at the moment.
29:30Libby, is that a balustrade I see going in?
29:32A balustrade.
29:33Is that where there's a railing?
29:34Yeah.
29:35That's good.
29:36So we're on a ship.
29:37Yeah.
29:38So I should include that as part of the day.
29:39Yes.
29:40Because, I mean, listen, we spent all day doing this.
29:42We might as well reflect it in the artwork, couldn't we?
29:44Exactly.
29:45Yeah.
29:46Yeah.
29:47Yeah.
29:48Yeah.
29:49Yeah.
29:50Yeah.
29:51Yeah.
29:52Yeah.
29:53The balcards have been battling away all day for artistic glory.
29:56It could have gone worse.
29:58It was tricky to start with, but it's sort of come together in the last ten minutes, maybe.
30:06I'm deciding on a few colour changes, maybe.
30:07I'm debating whether or not I put the wheel in or whether I chicken out and leave it.
30:16So, yeah, some small things.
30:18You know, it'd be good if my work impressed the judges, but I told myself before coming
30:25that I just need to let go and have fun.
30:27And I have had a lot of fun.
30:29But which of our wildcards will be jumping for joy?
30:33Time to discover today's winner.
30:36Well done!
30:41And it's the rich combination of acrylics and oils in Sherry G's boat moored on the river
30:52that's enthralled the judges.
30:54We were really taken with the painting.
30:56I think she's done a really good decision with the cropping of the work.
31:00And it's really lovely.
31:01It's done really well.
31:02Congrats.
31:03Congrats.
31:04Congrats.
31:05I'm not sure when it's going to sink in.
31:07I'm still, I don't know, in denial or buzzing or something.
31:13I think there's safety in numbers down there.
31:16If I end up being in the semi-final,
31:18that'll be a whole interesting experience if that happens.
31:22Sherry from West Sussex enters a pot of wildcard winners,
31:26one of whom will be chosen for a pod place in the next round.
31:37Back in the open and into their final hour,
31:40our main artists are keeping things in perspective.
31:43Is this more stressful than your day job?
31:46No.
31:47What is your day job?
31:48I work for the United Nations as an investigator.
31:50Right.
31:51That sounds like quite a serious job.
31:53What do you investigate?
31:54I investigate how conflict is financed.
31:57Wow.
31:58You don't do conflict resolution, do you?
32:00I don't do so much of the resolution.
32:02I was hoping you could speak to the judges.
32:03Never mind.
32:04I'm struggling with everything at the moment.
32:10I'm not getting the detail that I usually enjoy,
32:13so it feels really flat.
32:15But I'm hoping to pull it back, yeah.
32:21This is the third layer.
32:23I'm going to add all the key information for the image.
32:29I asked myself for this challenge, so I have to do it now.
32:33Nearly there.
32:34Nearly there.
32:48In London, eight artists have spent the last few hours depicting the view across the city's famous river.
32:55It's muddy, but not too much.
32:57Yeah.
32:58Your version of the Tames.
32:59Yes.
33:00You could just go mad on that one and keep layering up.
33:03But you can really feel it in the water, actually, in how you've treated it.
33:06It's really golden and full of yellows and oranges.
33:09It's really gorgeous.
33:11Tom, this morning you had this fantastic dynamic yellow underpaging.
33:20You've gone in with realistic colors.
33:23Yeah, yeah.
33:24But is it working?
33:25Are you happy with it?
33:26I need to do something to bring it together, because we're running out of time, I guess.
33:34Artists, you have five minutes left. Five minutes.
33:39I've added two little figures, so I'm just seeing if I can find a way of suggesting them without going into too much detail.
33:52I'm just trying to make it feel alive with dappling water.
33:58Be done when the time ends.
34:05It's just bringing it all together.
34:06I can slap paint on, but it's making it look halfway decent.
34:13I'm kind of trying not to touch it, because I could ruin it and then not be able to claw it back.
34:22I'm done.
34:35I could really do with another, like, three days, to be fair.
34:38Artists, your time is up. Please stop what you're doing and step away from your artworks!
34:57We did it!
34:58I think it's a really unique experience, but I made it. I finished it.
35:06I'll definitely do it again, but maybe a less windy day.
35:17Just one of these eight artists can go through to the semi-final
35:21and be in the running for the title of Landscape Artist of the Year.
35:24Our winner will travel to the western edge of County Mayo to paint the magical Crow Patrick, Ireland's holy mountain.
35:34They'll explore the coastline and the power of the Atlantic Ocean, absorbing the rugged natural beauty and changing light
35:42in order to create their winning commission for the National Gallery of Ireland.
35:46For now, on the deck of HMS Wellington, the judges have to decide who will make it through to the semi-final.
35:57First, they must narrow down this election to a shortlist of three.
36:01Quite a breezy day today, isn't it? Do you think you can feel it in the paintings?
36:11I feel lots of different weather, but I also feel rather moved to live in a city that can be interpreted in all these different ways.
36:19And I think that really comes out in the painting today. The artist had so much to choose from.
36:23Yeah.
36:24And I think that's given artists, you know, lots of room to play and be inspired.
36:28I mean, Nicola's sort of taken us to a very romantic, very moody part of London.
36:36I like the near abstraction. I love the balance in the palette, that lovely band of green that shoots across.
36:42This painting is full of drama and darkness, and it sweeps you off your feet. The brushstroke work is really incredible.
36:53Libby's painting sort of fizzes with energy. The water is in motion, the city is in motion.
36:58She's seeing what's in front of her, she's reinventing it constantly in these very beautiful lyrical marks.
37:03I think my favorite bit of Libby's painting is the fact that we are clearly on the ship.
37:07You've got the balustrade there, and I think she's the only artist that actually did that.
37:12I love Michael's reductionist style. It tells you everything with giving you very little.
37:17I do have a problem with Michael's people on the beach. I would, wouldn't I?
37:21Yeah.
37:22I think his style feels quite suited to the urban landscape, and he's really done, you know, an extraordinary work in terms of, you know, tuning out all the noises and really focusing on, you know, what are the building blocks of this landscape.
37:36Amanda, I think this painting really well constructed. If she'd had a bit more time, we would get more of these kicks of color, and the whole thing would really start to sing.
37:46So I think a painting on the way to being very good.
37:49It feels incomplete, but actually there's some beautiful passages and some really interesting moments.
37:54Based on Viola's submission, I was a bit surprised with the choice of medium for today, and I think she's done a really good job.
38:01I mean, she's gone for a sort of vignette style format, which really suggests we're on a boat that sways and rocks, there's been all this wind, so I really get this.
38:12I really love it as a piece of work. I love the mark making. It's full of vitality, but it's incredibly hard to read.
38:23Andrew, he's produced a very competent painter. I mean, you do get a sense of space, you get a sense of light. He's got a good composition, and I love the density of the city beyond the bridge down there.
38:36You can feel the movement in the clouds, and that lovely sinuous line that we saw in his submission is present on the surface of the water, so I think a lot of movement and energy.
38:49Tom's is sort of ugly, isn't it? But I really like it. It's got so much energy, so much color in that river, but it's not a pretty thing to look at.
38:59I love the color scheme, which all started with this layer of bright yellow, which is sort of dirtied throughout the day.
39:08And I feel like that creates an interesting commentary on, you know, what London is as a city. You know, it is dirty, it is grubby, but it also shines, and it's full of beautiful bright moments.
39:19Streets paved with gold, London, isn't it?
39:23I love Lucy's mark-making, the layers, the dripping. When you go closer, there's some sublime pieces of painting.
39:30Yeah. You can really feel that tension between the built environment and nature, and, you know, those trees are almost disappearing under the weight of the buildings around them.
39:43Artists, thank you so much for what has been a very different kind of day for us.
39:58The judges have selected three of you to go through to the shortlist, and those three artists are...
40:05Nicola Tremaine.
40:09Nicola Tremaine.
40:17Libby Walker.
40:24And the final artist on the shortlist is...
40:28Tom Winter.
40:29Oh!
40:34Libby, thank you so much, Michael.
40:37Our judges now have to agree on today's winner. To help them choose, they take another look at the artists' submissions.
40:47Fantastic day. You have to say, we haven't made it easy for them today, but some good art.
40:52Great art, yes. Nice to see that if you give the artists enough to work with, they respond in kind.
40:58So, Nicola, so much atmosphere in both those paintings, then you put them side by side.
41:03I think there's a strangeness to Nicola's work that really carries through.
41:08I mean, the submission feels really strange and really quite hard to read, and I feel like there's similar mechanisms today in her work, whereby you clearly know that it's London, but it's also not London at the same time.
41:20London at the same time, it's another place, and it's a place of dream or nightmares. I'm not quite sure.
41:25Maybe it's more about storytelling. Maybe we're used to narrative painting being slightly smaller, slightly more intimate.
41:31This is sort of storytelling on a much grander scale, and she's looking for meaning and mood and drama.
41:37So, Libby, this is a sort of fantastical submission. Today, she gave us the railing to sort of cling on to, and then all hell breaks loose beyond it in a wonderful way.
41:49There was a sort of joyous lyricism to the submission and the way she was making this forest sing and dance.
41:57And I feel like today, even though that is absolutely not present in the landscape, she still found it, and I think she really found it in the water.
42:06Yeah, I mean, that's brown sludge we've been looking at all day, and look at that.
42:09And look at this sort of psychedelic party that's going on in the water here today.
42:13This whole thing makes sense in terms of space where the bridges, where the buildings are, in this very sort of poetic sort of language. That's magic. I love it.
42:22First thing I notice about Tom's when they're side by side is these shadows at the bottom of both the paintings.
42:27The shadow on the left seems to anchor the building to the ground, and the vertical shadow on the right-hand painting.
42:33I think Tom is all about light and shade, but he's also about precision and chaos.
42:38You've got this combination of detail in the mark-making, but then slightly chaotic in the way in which he allows the paint to sort of slide all over the place.
42:47I think it works incredibly well.
42:49It's interesting looking at Tom's painting today and his submission.
42:52It's this beautiful balance of painting and drawing with this glow, this light coming from interior light. It's fantastic.
43:00Nicola, Libby, Tom, you've done amazingly well to get this far at what's been, frankly, quite a challenging heat.
43:17Sadly though, only one of you can win today and go through to the semi-final.
43:21And that artist is...
43:30Libby Walker.
43:31It feels exhilarating to be the winner. I'm still shaking a little bit.
43:41The fact that I can now be a painter, I can now be that, it's just, um, yeah, feeling a bit teary.
44:02Oh, Libby's a fabulous painter. She's just inventive. She's a great colorist. The way she puts paint down is new.
44:10It's playful. And if we think forward to if she goes all the way and wins a submission to paint Crowpatrick,
44:17she has a kind of joyful lyricism as part of her artistic DNA.
44:23And I think she's shown she can apply it to wherever she makes a painting.
44:28Hiya, um, I'm calling you because I just won.
44:33Oh, yeah!
44:34I won, I won, I won!
44:38That's amazing.
44:39Love you!
44:41Bye!
44:42If you'd like to discover more about the work of our artists or apply for next year's competition,
44:49push the boat out and visit skyartsartistoftheyear.tv.
44:53Next time, we're on England's south coast.
45:00I don't usually paint buildings.
45:02So this is going to be interesting for me.
45:05As eight new artists take on a monument to the Middle Ages.
45:08And the elements.
45:12OK, we get some help.
45:13Yeah.
45:15So who will lead the charge?
45:17Trust the process, as they say.
45:19Trust the process.
45:21And who will find it all a bit of a battle?
45:24Too many rush decisions, too much paint.
45:27Oh, and I'm very hot.
45:57If that's about 10 minutes to come, let's go.
46:0025 minutes to go.
46:01I'm very hot.
46:02You're right.
46:03I'm very hot.
46:04If you're alive, you need a battle.
46:05I don't know.
46:07I'm very hot.
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