Artist adds an Eye Line 2025 commendation to her long list of achievements in the competition, with judges refreshed by her loose, hands-on style
Jolene Liam has been a regular entrant to Eye Line and her idiosyncratic, loose drawing technique has always come to the attention of different cohorts of judges, taking third place in both 2024 and 2023.
This year was no different, and finds her adding a new commendation to her list of plaudits from the drawing competition. The joy stems from how Liam treats drawing as both a personal investigation and technical experiment, and over the years readers have been privy to its development.
Judge Bongani Muchemwa, who follows her work on Instagram, saw it as “familiar to me but also work that’s developing over time”. Mary Duggan, meanwhile, liked the layering of material techniques, lending it depth, but also the fact that “it’s anti-AI and really saying something about the act of drawing and the method of its containment”.
Samantha Hardingham agreed, valuing her activity here “as clearly part of a bigger body of work investigating the world around her”. Meanwhile Koldo Lus Arana appreciated the idea of using objects and doodles, feeling the work “very reminiscent of Saul Steinberg”, but was more measured in his praise. Feeling that the clarity of voice needed honing here, he added: “For me, the result is not yet as engaging as the process.”