LONDON, ENGLAND.-The Paul Hamlyn Foundation announced the names of the five winners of this year’s Awards for Visual Arts at a reception at the Royal Academy of Arts. The five winning artists are: Clio Barnard, Ian Breakwell, Jacqueline Donachie, Factotum (Stephen Hackett and Richard West) and Michael Landy. The five artists will each receive £30,000 spread over a period of three years. Adrian Searle, Chief Art Critic of The Guardian will be the guest speaker and will present the awards with Jane Hamlyn, Chair of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Since the judging took place in July, Ian Breakwell has sadly died. The award will be accepted posthumously on his behalf and will go towards sustaining the legacy of his work.

Since 1998, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation has invested over £1 million through the Awards for Artists. The Awards affirm the Foundation’s belief in the importance of the creative process. They are given on the strength of talent, promise and need as well as achievement and there are no strings attached. The Awards cover the visual arts in their broadest sense and reflect the enormous diversity and range of practice today. Each year 20 nominators put forward the names of artists who live or work in the UK or Ireland. Submissions from the artists are then considered by a distinguished panel of judges.

Jane Hamlyn said, “The Awards affirm the Foundation’s belief in the importance of the creative process. They give artists a chance to worry about their work rather than about how to pay the rent. We want this award to be about the individual artists and not the art form, to help unlock people’s potential and to underwrite the taking of risks.”

The judges for 2005 were: Willie Doherty, Artist; Christoph Grunenberg, Director, Tate Liverpool; Gill Hedley, Director, Contemporary Art Society; Amanda Levete, Principal, Future Systems Architects, and Jane Hamlyn Chair of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

The nominators for 2005 were: The artists - Tomma Abts, Kutlug Ataman, Roderick Buchanan, Lucy Gunning, Graham Gussin, Runa Islam, Hilary Lloyd, Gavin Turk and Bedwyr Williams; Paul Bonaventura, Senior Research Fellow in Fine Art Studies, The Laboratory, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford; Charlotte Cotton, former Head of Programming, The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Alex Farquharson, Curator and Writer; Adrian Heathfield, Curator and Writer on Visual Art and Performance; Francis McKee, Curator and Writer; Hugh Mulholland, Director, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast; Judith Nesbitt, Head of Exhibitions and Display, Tate Britain, London; Sarah Shalgosky, Curator, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre; Polly Staple, Curator and Writer; Andrea Tarsia, Head of Exhibitions and Projects, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and Mike Tooby, Director, National Museum & Gallery of Wales.