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Exciting News – I’m a Finalist! 🎉
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Message
Posted
Hi everyone!
I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been selected as one of the 11 finalists for the British Contemporary Art competition! This is such an exciting milestone for me, and I’d love your support.
You can help by casting your vote here: British Contemporary Art Voting. It would mean the world if you could also vote for my work!
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support—it truly makes a difference! 💛
Cheers,
Glafira 😊
Posted
I won’t be voting on a link and to be honest I think it’s unethical asking people to vote like this , especially as you are unknown to us . As a moderator I would normally remove posts with external links but as it’s art related I will leave it and let other members decide if they wish to vote .
Edited
by Paul (Dixie) Dean
Posted
This seems to be a very curious competition, though I hasten to point out that is not a remark aimed at Ms Kotova. She is indeed on the list of 'finalists' appearing on the voting page. I put the word 'finalists' in inverted commas because it is difficult to find any details of the competition. Not being one who likes to click on links from sites or people unfamiliar to me, I did a Google search for British Contemporary Art. It describes itself as a 'curated web site' and its aim is to sell artwork by contemporary British Artists, of which it seems to represent about 24. There is nothing wrong with that and Ms Kotova is not one of the represented 24. The only link I could find to the competition was a small panel entitled British Contemporary Art 2025, with a sub title 'BCA Awards 2025 - Voting' which linked to the voting page. It is on the site's home page but it is hardly a main features, it would be easily missed. The rest of the page appears not to feature entries in the competition, but works of the 24 artists represented by the site. The voting page shows 11 works of art, including one by Ms Kotova; I don't think any of the finalists are artists represented by the web site (I could be wrong). All in all it strikes me as odd. If you go to the trouble of organising a competition, and presumably selecting works to appear in the 'final', why do it is such an underwhelming way, a way that is hardly likely to bring the aspiring finalists to the attention of the art world?
Posted
I didn't follow the link, I'm afraid. I'm happy for anyone who wins a competition or is selected as part of a shortlist, but I really need to know a lot more about a competition, the company promoting it, and who else is featured in it - though presumably you can see that on the linked website - before voting or otherwise participating.
It's true that we don't generally care for links in posts - though that's normally because they're sneaked in to an apparently innocuous post, leading to sites which have nothing to do with art; and that wasn't the case here. I'll have a look at this competition when I've a bit more time than I have today: I don't want to rain on anyone's parade! But I have never before heard of this competition, it seems others haven't either, and that tends, in these days when somebody is always up to something they shouldn't be, to arouse suspicion.
Glafira has posted work on our Gallery here, and I can see why it WOULD have won a competition.
Posted
BCA has been in existence for around ten years or so. I remember it being set up by Mark David Hatwood who has also written a number of articles for TA over the years. Mainly on setting up websites and selling your art, marketing etc…
I did have some of my work for sale on the BCA website at one time, but the membership was low at the time, and I eventually withdrew from it.
He also runs a successful gallery in Porthscatho, but I can’t offer any information about competitions.
Amongst the list of 24 that has been mentioned, there are a few well known names that I have spotted, Ben Taffinder being one of them.
Posted
Good evening, everyone! I sincerely hope I didn’t offend anyone. In my post, I simply mentioned that if you appreciate my work, you’re welcome to vote for me.
I didn’t realize this might come across as inappropriate, as I recently visited the organizer’s gallery in Cornwall and was genuinely impressed by it. That’s where I learned about this competition and decided to participate.
The participants tagged on Instagram are not well-known artists with large audiences, so asking for votes seemed reasonable. However, I now see that the voting process could have been made more transparent, particularly by not requiring people to subscribe to a mailing list. Unfortunately, I only noticed this requirement after posting.
If my post violates forum rules, I completely understand if it needs to be removed to preserve the friendly atmosphere of this community.
Posted
I don’t think there is a need to remove it unless my fellow moderators feel differently. I do t think you posted it with any intention of offending or getting involved in any marketing campaign etc , we are very always very careful with any link on the forum. Over the last few month or we have overwhelmed with post containing links to others site and some very unstable websites. I think had we know you better we might have read it differently in addition you would have known the situation regarding adding links . I do hope this hasn’t put you off using POL and you continue to post your artwork and join in the discussion , for me the important thing is you have come back and explained your post and apologised and I thank you for doing so .