Andrew Torr won Jackson’s Art Prize 2024 with his oil painting Estate. Now a Guest Judge for 2025, he discusses transforming something unlovely into something beautiful, not being afraid of rejection, and how winning Jackson’s Art Prize is like winning the FA Cup.
Estate, 2023
Andrew Torr
Oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm | 47.2 x 47.2 in
Interview with Andrew Torr
Josephine: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your artistic practice?
Andrew: My name is Andrew Torr, I’m a painter and I won Jackson’s Art Prize 2024. My winning painting is a good indication of what it is that I’m interested in. I’m a figurative painter and I’m currently obsessed with housing estates, ones that you see dotted around the UK at the moment. They’re an interesting subject matter because they are quite often particularly unlovely and I’m trying to make something beautiful out of those things, which is a great challenge in a way. The process and the approach that I now have has come about after long periods of trialing and experimenting with how to present that subject matter on canvas. What I’m looking for is that sweet spot between the thing represented and the kind of music that the paint makes on the canvas, the kind of abstracted shapes.
Josephine: Can you tell us about a career highlight or any memorable moments as an artist?
Andrew: Without a doubt, winning Jackson’s Art Prize 2024 has been a highlight of my career thus far. I had a very good year last year, I was lucky enough to be included in the RA Summer Exhibition and had solo shows at No Hawkers Gallery in Brighton and Liminal Gallery in Margate. I also got accepted into the NEAC Annual Exhibition, so I’ve had a lot of highlights this year but Jackson’s Art Prize definitely takes the biscuit.
Battersea Park Summer, 2019
Andrew Torr
Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm | 19.6 x 19.6 in
Josephine: What exhibitions or artists have inspired you over the last year?
Andrew: One of the shows that I’ve enjoyed this year has been Alice Neel at the Barbican, it’s an amazing show. Just goes to show that if you kind of plough your own furrow and believe in what you’re doing, that’s a great way to succeed in painting. They’re just lovely, heartfelt, domestic paintings, guileless, but absolutely brilliant.
The Julie Mehretu show at White Cube was really good. I’ve always liked her work and it was a little bit surprising the way she’s gone with it this last year, but the works were just brilliantly inventive. Anselm Kiefer was at White Cube as well, a lot of the work he’s been doing recently was based on Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and I’m a big James Joyce fan. It was great to see that he dealt with that in a really lovely, respectful way. An amazing show, I was blown away by it.
I was also lucky enough to see the Nicolas de Staël retrospective at the Modern Art Museum in Paris. Again, another painter that I really love and I’m not sure why he’s not better known off the art pages in a way. His work is so conventionally beautiful, rigorous and fantastic, it’s great to see that show. At the same time when I was there, the big Rothko show was on at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and it was just astonishing.
Any of the shows that have been organised by Contemporary British Painting this year have been great. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but I think that what they do and their attitude to showing and promoting good painting has been really great. I went down to Rye to see one of their shows twice. One of the exhibitors there was Paula McArthur, who won the Judge’s Choice Award by Matthew Burroughs in the Jackson’s Art Prize.
Thames – East From Waterloo Bridge, 2019
Andrew Torr
Josephine: How important or helpful do you think awards and competitions are to artists today?
Andrew: I think competitions are great for painters and artists working today. Competitions force you to consider your work in relation to others, something we rarely do in the studio. Painting is quite a solitary thing to do, even if you paint in the studio or if you paint en plein air or whatever your practice is. You rarely put yourself up against other people in a way that you do when you enter a competition. You have to be mindful of what distinguishes you from other people who are painting, and what it is that makes your practice special. I don’t think that we should ever treat what we do as a competition against other people, rather it makes you understand that what you’re making is not in a vacuum.
To use a football analogy, I think a competition like Jackson’s Art Prize is like the FA Cup rather than the Champions League. The great thing about the FA Cup is that anybody could potentially win it. Like Tooting and Mitcham, who are my local team, could end up winning the FA Cup. If you are working away in your studio somewhere in the Midlands and feel left out of the art world, this is a terrific chance to get involved and have your work judged amongst your peers.
Josephine: What made you enter Jackson’s Art Prize 2024? Did you ever think you would win?
Andrew: I’ve always been impressed with the works selected for Jackson’s Art Prize. I think anybody who paints is impressed in the same way, it’s just very well regarded. It also helped this time around that I was longlisted the previous year, which kind of makes you think, “Oh, well, I must be doing something right.” It sort of spurs you on a little bit, but I never once thought that I would win the competition. I’m confident in the work that I’m doing and I’m pleased with the way that it’s going, but you don’t really know how it’s being received by people until these things happen. That kind of validation helps with your confidence about what you’re doing and helps you understand that you might be going the right way.
Estate – End of the Affair, 2024
Andrew Torr
Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm | 15.7 x 15.7 in
Josephine: Are you looking forward to selecting the winner of your own Judge’s Choice Award?
Andrew: It’s a terrific honour to be asked to sit on the judging panel for Jackson’s Art Prize this next year, I am seriously looking forward to it. I’ve been lucky enough to win a few awards over the years and it’s difficult to quantify how positive it can be in an artist’s career to win those things. I think having it in my gift to do that and help somebody in that way is a great thing to do.
Clapham Common Summer II (detail), 2018
Andrew Torr
Oil on linen 100 x 100 cm | 39.3 x 39.3 in
Josephine: What will you be looking for amongst the submissions?
Andrew: In terms of judging, I think it’s easier to say what I’m not looking for than what I am looking for. I’m not looking for a particular approach to painting. As a figurative painter, I’m not the kind of painter who would necessarily be drawn to figurative painting. If you think of another painter who was one of the winners in last year’s Jackson’s Art Prize, Melanie Berman, her painting was abstract and it’s one of the most terrific things in the show. I mean, it was such a great painting and it’s no surprise that it was a prize-winner.
Estate – Where Joy Forever Dwells, 2024
Andrew Torr
Oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm | 35.8 x 35.8 in
Josephine: What advice would you give to artists who are thinking about entering Jackson’s Art Prize 2025?
Andrew: My main advice to anybody considering entering the Jackson’s Art Prize 2025 is to stop considering and enter it. You just won’t regret it. I think there’s a fear amongst painters of rejection when you go into these competitions.
There are so many factors involved in judging these competitions, but none of them reflects on the quality of your work. I’ve entered competitions where I’ve not been considered, shortlisted, or longlisted. Then there are others, like this one, where I’ve done well and you can’t gauge it.
You should just get on with it and do it. I do feel for actors who go into auditions where you’re in a room with somebody and you’re giving over something of yourself and then somebody looks at you and says, “I’m sorry, but you’re not right for the role.” That must be crushing, but this is not like that. Don’t be afraid of rejection. We’re not making these paintings for competitions, everything is a development. It’s almost like you’re being judged at a particular point on what you’re doing. And who knows, if you don’t get in this year, the direction that your work is going may mean that next year you’ve really got into your stride and that may be your time. Never be afraid of going in for these things.
If I were to offer advice to anyone entering the competition, I’d say it’s important to consider how your work fits into the wider world. For me, having an unusual subject matter really helped. I think that if people are looking at that amount of entries, something needs to make the work stand out from the rest. I know that’s easier said than done, it’s something that we’re always trying to do. I didn’t force a subject matter onto my work because I thought it’d be unusual. A subject matter has to come organically, it has to be something that you are learning from and confident with. You can’t force it, but it’s just something worth bearing in mind.
Watch our interview with Andrew Torr on Instagram
Guest Judges
Anita Klein: Printmaker and painter, fellow and past president of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers
Anne Rothenstein: Artist represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, RWA Academician
Péjú Oshin: Curator, writer, and lecturer whose work sits at the intersection of art, style, & culture
Hugo Barclay: Director of Affordable Art Fair UK, Curator, and Art Advisor
Joshua Donkor: Artist, member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters
Andrew Torr: Artist, winner of Jackson’s Art Prize 2024 with his painting, Estate
Further Reading
How We Collaborate With Artists
Jackson’s Art Prize 2024 Exhibition at the Affordable Art Fair
Art Fair Checklist for Artists
Expert Advice on Making Your Way as an Artist
Visit Jackson’s Art Prize website
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