Shortlist announced! Robert Walters Group UK New Artist of the Year Award 2021
From a record breaking 963 submissions, the top 10 entries have been shortlisted for the second edition of the Robert Walters UK New Artist of the Year Award 2021.
The 10 shortlisted artists will have the honour of having their work exhibited at the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in London on Thursday 4 November 2021, where the overall winner of the £10,000 cash prize will be announced at a VIP awards evening.
The exhibition will remain on view, with free public entry, from Thursday 4 November through Sunday 7 November 2021 at Saatchi Gallery. On Monday 8 November, the exhibition will transfer to UKNA’s virtual gallery space for one month, designed and built by Ronan Somerville. During this time, the public will be able to vote for their favourite artist to receive the 'Public Choice Award'
The runner up will receive a cash prize of £5,000 to go towards the development of the artists’ future career in the industry.
Aimee Melaugh (Derry)
Anne von Freyburg (London)
Catriona Robertson (London)
Jarvis Brookfield (Leicester)
Jukka Virkkunen (London)
Lucy Gregory (London)
Maayan Sophia Weisstub (London)
Molly Kent (Edinburgh)
Sam Tahmassebi (London)
Wesley George (London)
Aimee Melaugh
Location: Derry
Education: Belfast School of Art (Fine art)
Biography
Aimee Melaugh is a painter based in Derry, she received a First Class BA Honours Degree in Fine Art Painting in 2018 from the Belfast School of Art. Melaugh was a recipient of the Belfast Print Workshop Residency Award in 2018 and has since exhibited at Platform Arts Belfast, PS² Belfast and the ArtisAnn Gallery. She has had a solo exhibition at The Glassworks, Derry, supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland and has recently completed an artist residency with Art Arcadia in June 2021. Her work is included in public collections such as the Belfast School of Art, The Arts Council Northern Ireland’s permanent collection and the Northern Ireland Civil Service Art collection.
Title: Supporting Cast
About the work
‘Supporting Cast’ is a large scale oil painting based on false identities. The painting playfully hints at narcissistic tendencies and examines the idea of exposing someone’s true authentic form after their mask has slipped and everything has been stripped away. ‘Supporting Cast’ was inspired by the idea of how narcissists often cast victims to play a role in their life, merely for their own self gain. A mask can be seen in the centre of the painting, hinting at how narcissists often have tendencies to cover up their true self with a disguise. The painting develops around this focal point through an explosion of objects such as a balloon and rubik’s cube which portray a sense of naivety and hint at child-like games
Anne von Freyburg
Location: London
Education: Goldsmiths (Fine art)
Biography
Anne von Freyburg is a Dutch artist based in London. She studied her MA Fine Art at Goldsmiths, graduating in 2016, and her BA in Fashion Design at Hogeschool voor de Beeldende kunsten Arnhem, Netherlands, graduating in 2001. This October she is part of the Cob. x PLOP Residency in London. In 2019 she was awarded a residency at the Florence Trust in London, and in 2016 was shortlisted for the Art Gemini Prize. Anne has exhibited in London, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Her work has been published in Art Scope magazine (US), Embroidery art magazine (UK), Textiel Plus magazine (NL), Art Unplugged UK, Art Verge, PAN and the dream magazine (US) and many others. Von Freyburg’s work is in several private collections all over the world.
Title: Feminizing the Canvas
About the work
The large-scale textile paintings I am presenting are reconstructed Rococo portraits made out of a mixture of tapestry and contemporary fashion fabrics. The imagery focuses on a stylised idea around feminine beauty as found in the tradition of Boucher and Fragonard. With these works I attempt to raise questions about taste, femininity, high and low art and the constructs of female identity. The appropriated portraits are created with acrylic ink and then translated into hand-stitched fabrics and sewing techniques that give the work an almost bodily presence. Whilst on the one hand playful and referencing the decorative quality of their sources, the over-indulgence in these works also points to the excesses of throwaway fashion, selfies, and consumerism. By combining fine art with applied art in a conceptual way I aim at blurring the boundaries between them.
Catriona Robertson
Location: London
Education: Cental Saint Martins (Fine Art)
Biography
Catriona Robertson is a Scottish/British artist living in London. Catriona graduated from the Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture and Central Saint Martins BA Fine Art. She has recently been awarded a Studio Prize at SET in Woolwich and commissioned to build a large scale installation for the SET lobby. Her most ambitious work includes creating an Immersive exhibition ‘WYRM’ part of ‘Terra Nexus’ funded by the Proposition studios at the former ITV building on the Southbank in 2021, where she produced work in response to our relationship with the ecology, soil erosion, the importance of biodiversity and the anthropocene. In 2020 she was selected for the Standpoint Gallery studio residency programme supported by the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, and in 2019 was awarded a funded place as artist in residence at MERZ in Sanquhar, supported by Creative Scotland with a solo exhibition.
Title: Burrow Sprout Grow
About the work
Burrow Sprout Grow responds to architecture and the hidden spaces interwoven above and below ground within the fast changing rising concrete landscape and urban geology. The amalgamated cast surfaces reveal layers of repurposed construction site and domestic waste that become the aggregate of a stone-like surface as a sculptural collage of a future ruin. These are set with concrete, plaster, clay and paper-pulp forming an imprint of a new fossilised sedimentary layer of the anthropocene that has crystalised. The resulting surface retains an unfinished quality, a temporality and fragility as an imagined synthetic marble or stone that grows like a gargantuan creature consuming these materials. This draws to question, what new deep time imprints are we creating with layers of landfill, concrete and toxic chemicals that we put into the ground? What aggregates will the new monuments and architecture of the future made of, pliable, plastic, concrete of precarity?
Jarvis Brookfield
Location: Leicester
Education: De Montfort University (Fine Art)
Jarvis Brookfield is an artist currently living and working in Leicester, who graduated from De Montfort University with a 1st class degree in Fine art. Reflecting on and contemplating his experiences with mystical visionary states of consciousness and dreaming is what largely inspires him to create drawings and paintings from his imagination, that embody a celebration of the inner life and the transcendental.
Title: Lumelia
About the work
Inaquien, a made-up word meaning inner acquaintance, is a body of work composed of multiple imaginal, psychedelic, and vibrant paintings drawn from my personal experiences with altered states of consciousness.
The three paintings in this chapter of work are Kenlubah, meaning Jewelled delights from beyond the veil – Lumelia, meaning Luminescence, and Inaquien, meaning inner acquaintance. The reasoning behind using the name of one of the paintings as the title for the body of work is that they all fall under an overarching theme of celebrating and exploring the inner mysterious life of being. An intrinsic aspect of what makes us human.
As a result of exploring the mystery of altered states of consciousness through my work, the paintings are colourful, whimsical, and non-representational, yet recognisable, worldly, and alien forms slip in and out of focus creating the sensation of a visionary experience.
Jukka Virkkunen
Location: London
Education: Royal College of Art (Painting)
Biography
Jukka Virkkunen (b. 1986) is a Finnish artist living in London. Jukka finished his MA in painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 2020. The material process is at the centre of Jukka’s artistic practice; with a consistent engagement with concepts related to primal human experiences, art history, and autobiography. Working in various mediums, including painting, drawing, video, performance, and installation. Jukka explores the physicality of materials in the processes of making
Title: Ribcage / In the Garden of Death
About the work
As with many of my works these paintings appeared through multiple physical processes and through months of work. The paintings have an immediate physical presence and connection to the human body. There is a twist in your gut or a feeling of unease. The drop cloth becomes a skin that's been stretched over an exposed wooden skeletal structure. After the immediate physical experience, these paintings start to open up slowly. The viewing becomes meditative as you look travel inwards within yourself. The physicality of the works is transformed into ethereal. The paintings become icons for moments and memories
Lucy Gregory
Location: London
Education: The Ruskin School of Art & The Royal College of Art
Biography
Lucy Gregory (b. London, 1994) graduated from The Ruskin School of Art, 2016 and The Royal College of Art, Sculpture, 2018. Exploring the theatricality of flatness, she creates large-scale ‘kinetic collages’ that rely on audience participation to activate surreal mechanisms. Her sculptural environments play with a collision between bodies and machines to create the feeling you are walking into an animation – referencing the body and its flexible instability flattened on screen, and the often violent slapstick humour of cartoons. Lucy won the Ingram Prize and her work is now part of the Ingram Collection. She received the Gilbert Bayes Trust Studio Grant and the RCA Arts & Humanities Art Criticism Prize, and has been shortlisted for this year’s National Sculpture Prize to realise a large- scale outdoor sculpture. She was awarded solo exhibition at Boomer Gallery 2021 and recently exhibited at Bold Tendencies, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, MK Gallery and The Lightbox Gallery.
Title: The Blame Game
About the work
The Blame Game is an interactive, kinetic sculpture inspired by political agendas of recent times. Pendulums are set in motion and cartoon-like fingers satirically mock each other with slapstick, exaggerated finger wags. They blame each other, swinging with their own rhythm and momentum, pointing across the space in different directions with no obvious resolution. 'The new normal' throws a spotlight onto inner workings of the political system, disparities between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in and out, rule makers and breakers. The network of blame cast across the landscape is a mechanism to escape accountability, shifting instead to demographics, institutions, industries - and resultantly, we move forward with a mistrust of the system. The use of mirrors and methods of audience participation within the sculpture are deliberately employed as a way to put the viewer in the centre of the work - people affected by the web of blame and decisions now have a chance to become the puppeteer.
Maayan Sophia Weisstub
Location: London
Education: Royal College of Art
Biography
Maayan Sophia Weisstub (born 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist, graduate of the Royal College of Art. Weisstub was included in the 24th Gabrovo Biennial of Humor and Satire in Art and has shown at the Lothringer13 Halle (Munich), Pavlov’s Dog (Berlin), and Omer Tiroche (London). Her work has also been featured in “WhiteHot” magazine, “Kaltbult” magazine,” Design Taxi” and many more.
Title: Mnēmē
About the work
Mnēmē, is an installation/Kinetic sculpture, comprised of a desk, a chair, a book and a glass of milk. Each object is subtly breathing in different rhythms.
In my work the objects, which could be the only presence in isolation, breathe softly, as a reminder of life and its fragility. The fear of sickness and death sent us all to social isolation and I found myself alone, in an unknown environment. My experience was not unique, but it felt very lonely. Many people were in a very vulnerable position, and rates of depression and anxiety multiplied. In our inability to accept our impotence in face of finality of death humans have always projected life into still life.
Any life starts and ends with breath. Even in normal times breath is influenced by our mental state. During the Coronavirus pandemic that natural and automatic function became a primary symptom and a focus of awareness and anxiety.
The pandemic restrictions forced us to enhance virtual communication in many fields, such as art, medicine, education and more. I believe there is no substitute for real and intimate human interaction and hence my work is not virtual, it emphasises the need for physical presence with another, listening tuning into his/her reality whether inanimate or alive. My work offers to viewers an intimate encounter with this possibility.
Molly Kent
Location: Birmingham
Education: Edinburgh College of Art (Fine art)
Biography
Molly Kent, born 1995 is originally from Birmingham, England. She is now based in Edinburgh, Scotland where she graduated from the Fine Art MA course from Edinburgh College of Art with First Class Honours. Her work is concerned with traditional craft production methods including rug tufting, weaving and kniting, exploring notions and personal experience of mental health challenges.
Title: Dream Collage
About the work
'Dream Collage' is made up of a series of woven tapestries from my series 'Dream Weaving.' The presentation format intends to mimic the often overwhelming way in which vivid dreams are viewed, in my case, with several prominent dreams fighting to be at the forefront of my mind. The works share common themes, including extreme weather, digital anxiety and references to climate disasters. This arrangement of works also acts as one of the initial experiments for a future large scale installation, breaking away from the standard presentation of works and how placement and arrangement add to the overall reading of the works.
Sam Tahmassebi
Location: London
Education: University of East London
Biography
Sam Tahmassebi b.1985 (London, United Kingdom) is a visual artist working in a range of mediums including photography, sculpture, paint and installation. His practice is influenced by questions of society, psychology and philosophy, and their interconnectedness. His last and longest series used Instagram as the medium, exhibition space and point of critique, questioning the reverberations of ‘likes’, manufacturing hyper-reality and the consequences on society. His current series, Chaosmotic, are paintings that explore the effects of the Internet, social media and commercialism on consciousness and reality. He is the recipient of the Road to Rio Award from the University of East London and National Portrait Gallery, and the Graduate Award from the National Open Art competition.
Title: Liberating Claim of Subjecthood
About the work
Sam Tahmassebi’s work is enmeshed in the antagonisms of history and its effects 21st Century society whilst grappling with the digital era; consumerism and communication, which shape reality, social structures and ideologies. In all his work, Sam questions current trends, social paradigms IRL and online, as well as human nature. His paintings are centred on the historical and cultural symbolism of cartoon characters, their appearances evoking or reflecting a reaction to the symbols, brand logos or imagery around them. Their childish appearance is a farce; they actually convey the conflicting dynamics of race relations, geopolitics and social class dynamics. The overall aesthetic of Tahmassebi’s work reflects contemporary obsessions and the digital; playing with digital aesthetic-modes and screen-like flatness and illusions, mirroring the depreciation of images and their temporary nature, whilst simultaneously making them concrete.
Wesley George
Location: London
Education: Self-taught
Biography
Wesley George (b. 2000) is a self-taught British artist based in London. Mostly known for Expressing ideas through portraiture, George translates meaning with colour and symbolism. Dismantling racial narratives and focusing on the overlooked stories of black figures being the core focus. when reflecting on the western canon of art, george notes how representation can be limited, often being used to uphold white supremacist ideals, portraying dimensional black characters. This is echoed by today’s portrayal of black people in the arts, which george aims to transform. In 2020 He exhibited at the prestigious Jd Malat gallery, in the group show “Isolation Mastered” and later voted second favourite artist by a public jury. In January 2021 He was featured on the Art tv series “NextBigThing” and announced winner of the judges prize by a panel of experts, becoming a participant in theotherartfair. He’s exhibited twice more at the Jd Malat gallery.
Title: Essence
About the work
As an artist that has always focused on changing the narrative of how black people are presented in the media, this new scape provided by the pandemic has galvanised me and therefore my work and my desire to truly spark dialogue. This ongoing body of work Titled “essence” places a focused lens on dissecting the many intersections between race, youth and gender in conjunction with the black figure. Dismantling racial narratives being a core focus, I aim simply to depict the overlooked spirits and stories of black individuals.