Academy can still pack a punch online

Every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of this year’s RSA Open, an annual cultural highlight, the argentine aspect is that the open call for submissions reached a wider selection of artists. It meant that more entries were received from more artists and that, encumbered by transport costs, they submitted more lens-based work as well as images of paintings, prints and other traditional media.

A panel chose roughly 600 works from about 480 artists and these can be seen on a user-friendly website that groups the exhibits by price, medium, style and subject. One section, In the Studio, offers a series of short films by artists discussing their work.

Greig Penny, an architect, discusses his inspiration for a new-build home in the Outer Hebrides, based on the traditional and the new. Maya Rose Edwards explains the thinking behind her photographic print Wait, depicting a pedestrian-operated traffic control device incongruously placed in the Scottish mountains. Shutian Zhou introduces her short film, Letters to Mr Tadpole, which offers a powerful social and political critique of China’s one-child policy.

There’s no film to accompany the invited artist Oana Stanciu — a pity, given the complexity of the work and the talent that lies behind it. Stanciu, originally from Bucharest and now based in Edinburgh, has completed a number of residencies in Scotland, most recently in Ullapool, where she was jointly hosted by the RSA and the local gallery, An Talla Solais. Stanciu draws on the long European tradition of Surrealism, using her body and objects (found and made) to create photographic images that subvert the viewer’s expectations. These complex works — part sculpture, part performance, part self-portrait — are arresting and disconcerting.

It’s good to see such a fresh array of young international talent. Combined with the work of RSA stalwarts such as the paper sculptor Jacki Parry, this makes for an inspiring show.

At www.rsaannualexhibition.org until May 30