Miniature Masters at Canal Boat Contemporary

A success story for 2025’s ‘year of rejection’ challenge. I saw that Sally Muir had entered her delightful miniature painting of a dog into an open call on Instagram. The open call was for paintings under 10cm in size and was for an exhibition titled Miniature Masters. It was being run by Canal Boat Contemporary, an art gallery which resides in a lit box on the side of a canal boat moored in various places in London. The gallery was new to me, I found it immediately intriguing. I love making small works and also really enjoy alternative exhibition spaces.

I made a tiny work especially, under 10cm of a woodland landscape using ink. I used a reference photograph that I’ve used before, of tangly woodland undergrowth.

I submitted my entry by posting on Instagram and paid the small entry fee. All entries were judged by Pushka, artist and owner of Canal Boat Contemporary, Kate Bryan, art historian, author and Head of Collections for Soho House, Mary Ramsden, artist and Royal Academy graduate and Anna Smithson, art consultant, curator and mentor.

To my delight my work was accepted! I wasn’t able to see the exhibition unfortunately but loved seeing photos of the show in full swing. It was moored very closely to Frieze so I hope some art collectors visited!

Can you spot my piece in the box?