Perth art lecturer emerges triumphant after success at prestigious Royal Scottish Academy
Perth College UHI art lecturer, Frank To, has sold all his ignited gunpowder works at this year’s prestigious Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition; an achievement few artists have ever gained.
To’s first submission of his work to the Royal Scottish Academy was immediately accepted this year. Before the exhibition even opened in July, To’s radical new art pieces created in explosive black powder and ignited gunpowder generated unprecedented levels of interests and sales, particularly from art critics who have compared him as inventive and revolutionary like the French Impressionists.
Commenting on the recent success at the Royal Scottish Academy, To said: “I never really expected the gunpowder and explosive black powder series to be this successful. All I ever wanted was to show the importance of technical craft, such as drawing and painting, being integrated into contemporary art. Artistic craftsmanship is dying in the UK and I want to highlight that I myself trained in a traditional Scottish art school still value these skills and hard graft.”
Andrew Goring, RSA Gallery Coordinator said: “The Royal Scottish Academy is delighted to have sold all of Frank To’s dramatic and poignant paintings at this year’s Open exhibition which has received over 80,000 visitors during the Edinburgh Festival. The exhibition aims to showcase the breadth of talent in Scotland to a global audience, visiting the nation’s capital at a very busy and exciting time of the year. The sale of artworks is important because the proceeds directly fund the practice of our exhibiting artists, in addition to the work of the RSA, which is an independently-run registered charity and receives no core public funding.”