Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021 - I got in!!!

'For the Mothers of Gorton' (2020) sculpture by Jilly Topping. 

Now showing at the RA Summer exhibition 2021.

It's been the most exciting summer. I was shortlisted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition 2021. Just being shortlisted was enough, I was so excited that someone had seen my work and felt something. Not a friend or member of my family, a stranger with no explanation of the work. This felt like a watershed moment, justifying taking 3 years out to study fine art. My main aim was to learn how to put emotion into my work and this felt like I was on the right track.

I took my work into the RA to be assessed in August. Leaving it there for a month was strange but exciting. On the 9th September I would hear if I had got in. I checked my email all day until the email arrived. I cried with happiness on the tube train, well hidden by my covid mask!

I was over the moon to be accepted. The invitation to the Varnishing day church service and artists party arrived and I booked my place. It was a fantastic day, I made new friends with 'real' artists, saw tutors from my university and looked around the best RA show I have ever seen. Yinka Shonibare has created the most diverse, colourful, magical show. So fresh and new, with elements of textiles and crafts not usually seen at the RA.

Finding my work in the RA rooms when I first arrived was so emotional. It's in the sculpture room (no. 1182) selected by the Irish artist Eva Rothschild. It sits alongside Cathie Pilkington, Grayson Perry and Michael Craig Martin! All favourites of mine and a privilege to be shown in the same room.

I am now looking forward to taking friends and family to see the show and trying to make the most of this great opportunity to show my work to the public.

Detail of inside of sculpture

In the Lecture Room at the RA

Alongside artworks in on the sculpture pyramid

Featured on the cover of the Guardian newspaper

On the BBC2 program about the summer exhibition.