Judging the Ashurst Emerging Art Prize – Magnus Brooke

How was your experience as a judge on the Ashurst Emerging Art Prize panel?

Well, the most challenging aspect was definitely the fact that the judging was all done online. When I agreed to take part I thought a lot of the viewing would be done in person and I'd get to see some of the work up close but sadly that wasn't to be. This meant that we had to be as imaginative as possible. In a way that probably helped some artists – those making a very clear visual statement for instance - but might have been slightly more tricky for other more subtle work which might have fared better in person for instance.

What I enjoyed most, by a country mile, was doing something completely different to my day to day work. It allowed me the luxury of stepping into a different world. One which I haven't stepped into properly for 20 odd years.

What do you look at when determining the winners?

For me the first thing is, whether the work is trying to say something new or saying something in a distinctive way. That's the critical thing – is it new and innovative and exciting, in whatever medium the person's working in, or is it a bit stale, or a slight copycat of an existing artist or style. I'm looking for innovation, challenge and difference because that's what I think the purpose of the prize is.

And what did you think of the overall winning piece by Pippa El-Kadhi Brown (below)?

I thought it was really strong. It was a kind of domestic scene, but not. It had an imaginative and attractive use of colour, but a rather disturbing image which jarred with the apparent domestic backdrop. I thought it was a clever combination of different elements which added together into a really powerful, and actually genuinely distinctive piece of work.

James Hayes', Wanderer beneath the Sea of Cloud won the Ashurst Choice Prize, as voted for by Ashurst employees and alumni. What did you think of this piece (below)?

It's one of those pieces which I think super trendy metropolitan art people would slightly turn their noses up at if I'm honest. But I really liked it, partly because I was born in the Yorkshire Dales and I looked at that picture and I could almost see myself walking on the moors. So I did anything but turn my nose up at it and it was on one of the lists that I put forward. I think there's more than a place for pieces like that, as it gives you a bit of variety. The world would be a very boring place if you just had a set of "right-on" work that was specifically designed to please a certain curator in London. I think that piece was very powerful and it added enormously to the variety of the show.

You used to write for some art magazines when you were at Ashurst. How did you get into that?

I've always been interested in art. When I was at university there was a wonderful scheme in place where you could actually borrow pictures from Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge and take them back at the end of the year. I was able to borrow some really quite valuable works of art, carry them out of the door of the gallery and across Cambridge and hang them on my wall. That was definitely an inspiration! I used to go to the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge a lot too.

When I left university I started going out with my now wife, who at the time was working for The Royal Academy and subsequently went to the Tate. We knew a lot of artists between us and I started going to lots of shows and met various people, including the artist Martin Maloney, who was also a critic at the time. He said "why don't you do some writing?", and he helped me get my first break with the publication, Flash Art. I wrote for them freelance and also wrote for a few other publications. All somehow fitted round working as a competition lawyer at Ashurst…..

In order to find somebody you wanted to write about you often had to go to between five and ten shows at the weekend, which was straightforward back in the 1990s and the early 2000s when I was living just off of Brick Lane and it was the centre of the art world. It was a really exciting hobby and a fun thing to do in my spare time. Of course, that changes when you move away and have kids and you're no longer at the heart of where the artistic action is. I also think, to some extent, the intensity that we experienced in the 1990s and early 2000s in the East End gradually dissipated as the artists became richer and more famous and newer artists had to find cheaper places to live.

Is it something you would like to go back to?

Part of me feels that my time might have passed in terms of having the time to find cutting edge/young graduates. I think that's quite a hard thing to get back. I also think the art world has changed a lot. Now, so much is being done online and through pop ups – the whole middle ranking tier of galleries that take on new artists is finding life quite difficult. It feels like a stage in my life that I really enjoyed but I might not go back to. Having said that, I still love art and I see as many shows as I can but that's now constrained from a time point of view by work and kids mostly. You can take the kids to some shows but there's a limit to how many they will put up with, and there are limits to which ones are suitable frankly!

Do you have any favourite artists?

I've always enjoyed Jock McFadyen's work. He's a Scottish painter who lives in the East End of London near where we used to live, and also happens to be the godfather of my daughter. He's a terrific artist. I also like Simone Martini who is a 14th Century Sienese artist, Casper David Friedrich, a German romantic artist. I also love the work of Jeff Wall and Catherine Yass, both of their work is really strong, and George Shaw – the Constable of the Tile Hill Estate in Coventry.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing artists today, and how important are awards and competitions?

That's a good question. I think the biggest challenge is getting noticed in a very crowded market where galleries are not doing quite the same job that they used to. The place where a young artist would launch their career is the degree show, because that's the moment they get a real stage in a proper gallery. Sadly that didn't really happen this year as the degree shows were all online and that's really tough for artists. Also, quite a lot of the galleries that were taking on and nurturing younger artists have started to struggle, and I suspect that's down to the internet. I think it's becoming harder and harder therefore for less established artists to build a reputation and get in to a rhythm in their career, which is what the gallery used to offer. Therefore, I think awards and competitions are now really important places to get noticed and to get the exposure that helps establish a career. So, in a funny way, I think they are probably more important now than they were when the Ashurst Emerging Art Prize was first launched.

Do you have any advice for artists out there who are thinking about entering the Ashurst Emerging Artist prize in future?

The first thing I would advise is just do it. The second is think very hard about which pieces you put in. Think about boring things, like, how is it going to look online. Will it look its best or is there another piece that would make more impact? You've got to grab people's attention. There's an awful lot of work submitted and people won't spend vast amounts of time trying to engage with the poetry of what you are trying to say when they first look at it so pick a piece that will turn heads online. Another thing to think about is how practical a piece is. The prize organisers do their best to accommodate all types of artwork but sometimes it's just not possible, so keep that in mind when submitting. Not that you should constrain your ambition, but you might have to be realistic about certain elements.

For more information about the art prize and to see the 2020 winners visit artprize.co.uk.