A Hampstead artist is on a roll at the Royal Academy after making it into the gallery’s famous Summer Exhibition for the second year running.
Last year Marianne Nix’s print 100 Running Lines Hyde Park was chosen from more than 10,000 entries to feature in the iconic exhibition – and now she has repeated the feat with a new work entitled A Leaving Present: Dinosaur Eggs.
Her latest effort will hang on the hallowed Academy walls alongside work by the likes of 2003 Turner Prize-winner Grayson Perry, who is showing a series of tapestries, from next Monday (June 10).
The artist, who works from her home studio in Vale of Health, said: “There were about 11,000 submissions, so to be chosen from that many is pretty amazing, especially as it’s the second one in a row.
“I’m thrilled to be in the same building where work by Van Gogh has hung – they’ve just had a Manet exhibition, so to think my print could be hung in the same spot as a Manet is amazing.”
Ms Nix has added her name to a long list of illustrious artists, from Turner to Tracy Emin, who have exhibited at the annual exhibition since it was first held in 1769.
Her latest success means she has been accepted twice in four attempts – not a bad return for someone who only went full-time as an artist in 2003.
She previously enjoyed a diverse career that included working as a producer for Japanese TV and a manager at mobile phone giant Vodafone.
Her print, A Leaving Present: Dinosaur Eggs, depicts a woman’s pregnant belly nestled in a clutch of dinosaur eggs and is inspired by a remarkable discovery she made when visiting a neighbour.
“I was amazed to see that they had some fossilized dinosaur eggs in their living room,” she said.
“I started to think about how these eggs had survived for so long – and about what we leave behind. Are we on the same track to extinction as dinosaurs?”
The image is framed with the signatures of famous creative figures who remained childless, such as Jane Austen and Beethoven, and whose legacy was their work.
“Many of us live with the hope that our children will carry on forever into the future, but I have no children,” she added.
“This got me to think about other people throughout history who had also had no children and ask if they had left anything behind.”
The Summer Exhibition opens next Monday (June 10) and runs until August 18.
Ms Nix’s work will also be on display from June 13 to 16 at the Affordable Art Fair Hampstead on Hampstead Heath, off East Heath Road.
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