LONDON, ENGLAND.- Wimbledon School of Art, the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the University of Gloucestershire are delighted to announce the winners of The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2003: 1st Prize (£5,000) - Paul Brandford (Snatch); 2nd Prize (£3,000) - Jeanette Barnes (Inside Canary Wharf DLR Station); 3rd Prize (£2,000) - Bryan Biggs (Entitled: Liverpool Portfolio of Measured Drawings); Student Awards (£500) - Caroline Edwards (Creeping Bruise); Joshua W. F. Thomson (The Age of Reason 1 – On Loan from the Institute of Ape Culture). The prizes will be announced this evening at an award ceremony in London by Mary Doyle, Co-Founder and Curator of The Drawing Room.
Selecting a winner from over 2400 entries submitted this year has been a challenging task for the expert panel of judges – Ken Currie (Artist), William Feaver (Art Critic, Writer and Broadcaster) and Anita Taylor (Artist, Educator and Director of The Jerwood Drawing Prize). William Feaver said of the experience, “Gradually, as day one of the selection process blurred into day two, certain drawings began to assert themselves, some large, some tellingly modest in size, all describable as (abused word though it is) poetic. Truly poetic. Eventually we came to decide on the winners, all excellent in a field of wide achievement, all alive with ideas, sensations, information.”
As the UK’s largest annual open drawing competition of its calibre, The Jerwood Drawing Prize has attracted entries from throughout the UK from both professional, non-professional and student artists. “The Drawing Prize is a unique venture for Wimbledon School of Art, the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the University of Gloucestershire”, said Karen Bateson, Jerwood Drawing Co-Ordinator at Wimbledon School of Art. “It is the longest running and largest exhibition of drawing in the UK, and provides a significant contribution in promoting awareness of the discipline within contemporary visual arts practice. This third year of substantial funding by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation has ensured the continuation of a prestigious exhibition of contemporary drawing of international stature.”
The exhibition is open to the public in London until 12th October 2003. It will then tour to Cheltenham, Glasgow, Hull and Manchester.
The Jerwood Drawing Prize is the largest annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK and aims to promote and reward excellence and talent in contemporary drawing practice.
The competition, initiated by the Malvern Drawing Associates in 1991, moved to Cheltenham in 1994 and to London in 2003. The Jerwood Charitable Foundation has been the principal benefactor since 2001. The project has grown considerably in stature and support since its inception and currently receives over two thousand submissions on an annual basis. The administrative centre for the exhibition relocated to Wimbledon School of Art in March 2003.
Wimbledon School of Art is an independent art school providing foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate study opportunities. The undergraduate courses offered by the School of Fine Art include Fine Art: Painting and Sculpture. The School of Theatre offers undergraduate courses in Costume Design and Interpretation as well as Set Design for Stage and Screen and Technical Arts and Special Effects. Specialist postgraduate courses include Fine Art: Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture and an Artist-Teacher Scheme, as well as MPhil/PhD degrees by research portfolio or thesis. All academic staff are practising artists, designers and scholars.
The School of Art, Media & Design at the University of Gloucestershire provides degrees in the disciplines of Film Studies, Fine Art, Media Communications, Professional Media, as well as postgraduate courses and opportunities for research.
The Jerwood Charitable Foundation is dedicated to responsible and imaginative funding of the arts, education in its widest sense, design, conservation and other areas of human endeavor. It supports, among other things, the Jerwood Artists Platform, Jerwood Choreography Awards and the Jerwood Painting Prize.
Background on the artists: Paul Brandford (b. 1965 in Luton, Bedfordshire, UK) studied at The Royal Academy Schools (1985-88). Selected exhibitions include Drawings For All, Gainsborough’s House (1990, 1994, 2002), The Cheltenham Drawing Exhibition, Cheltenham and Tour (1996, 1997); Resist, Crescent Arts, Scarborough (2003) and the Shewsbury Sotheby’s Open, Shrewsbury Art Gallery and Museum (2003). Commissions include Racecourse Holding Trust PLC (2001). Since 1990 he has been involved in gallery-based education, working for a number of institutions including the Courtauld Institute, the Crafts Council and the Royal academy of Arts. He lives and works in London.
Jeanette Barnes (b. 1961 in Great Harwood, Lancashire, UK) studied at Liverpool Polytechnic (1980-83), The Royal Academy Schools (1984-87) and the Royal College of Art (1987-89). She was awarded the Johns Moores Scholarship (1983); Richard Ford Spanish Scholarship (1987) and the Henry Moore Scholarship (1987-89). She was Prize Winner in Drawings For All (1983), Armitage Prize (1985) and the Hunting Group (1997). Selected exhibitions include Hunting Group (1983, 1994, 1996-97, 1999, 2002-03); Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition (1996-99) and The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (1986, 1992, 1995,1998-03). Her work is held in many public and private collections in the UK, Austria, Germany and the USA including Manchester City Art Gallery; F.S.A; Lloyds Bank; Hammersons UK, Riggs Bank and Foster and Partners. Commisions include F.S.A; LloydsTSB Bank and Donaldsons. She lives and works in London.
Byran Biggs (b. 1952 in Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK) studied at Barnet College (1971-72) and Liverpool Polytechnic (1972-75). He ran the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool before becoming Director of the Bluecoat Art Centre (1994), where he continues to work. In parallel to arts administration and curating (most recently the international Liverpool Biennial in 2002), he has maintained his own drawing practice. Exhibitions include In Comparison, Galerie Berners, Cologne (2001) and Nervous Kingdom, Bluecoat Gallery (2000). He has contributed drawings and writings to numerous publications including Responses: Intercultural Drawing Practice (cair, Liverpool School of Art and Design, 2001); Aspects of Elvis (Sidgewick and Jackson, 1994); Independent Practices: Representation, Location and History in Contemporary Visual Art, Editor (Bluecoat, 2000); Live From The Vinyl Junkyard: The Ultimate Mix (Bluecoat, 1998) and Trophies of Empire (Bluecoat, 1994).
Caroline Edwards (b1980, Colwyn Bay, North Wales, UK) studied at Llandrillo College, North Wales (1996-00) and the University of Gloucestershire (2000-03). Selected exhibitions include ING/The Discerning Eye Student Sale Exhibition, London (2002). She will be studying an MA (Fine Art Conservation) at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne later this year.
Joshua W. F. Thomson (b1977, York, UK) studied at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (1996-99) and the Royal College of Art, London (2001-03). He received the Basil H Alkazzi Foundation Scholarship (2001), the Sheldon Burgh Award (2003) and was shortlisted for the National Grid Transco Award. Selected group exhibitions include Diversion, Arch 295, London (2002); Suspense, The Atrium Gallery, London (2002); Hunting Art Prizes, RCA, London (2003); A Tiny New Nation, London (2003) and Cold Stew, VTO Gallery, London (2003).
Benefactors: In addition to the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, the following also support the competition: CHK Charities Ltd - The Rootstein Hopkins Foundation
