The Robert Walters Group UK Young Artist of the Year Award in partnership with Saatchi Gallery discovers and champions exceptional artists who are representative of contemporary Britain.
In 2019, we launched an open call across the UK to discover 10 outstanding artists whose work demonstrates a strong and original voice, and is of exceptional artistic quality. We sought artists who represent the UK’s richly diverse population, and embody the experiences of their community.
The 2019 finalists were: Azraa Motala; Camilla Hanney; Conor Rogers; Francisco Rodriguez; Linnet Panashe Rubaya; Malgorzata Lisiecka; Manon Ouimet; Morgan Dowdall; Rob Branigan; and William Harman. First prize (£10,000) was awarded to Conor Rogers; second prize (£5,000) was awarded to Camilla Hanney. An exhibition of the finalists’ work was presented at Saatchi Gallery, and judges included Philippa Adams - Director of Saatchi Gallery, Robert Walters – CEO of Robert Walters Group, Gavin Turk - artist, Michael Forbes - artist, and Rosalind Davis - artist, writer and UKNA alumni.
The Robert Walters Award 2020 was forced to take a hiatus due to the covid-19 crisis, therefore we have taken the opportunity to celebrate the following finalists from the 2019 award: Morgan Dowdall, Camilla Hanney, Will Harman, Malgorzata Lisiecka, Manon Ouimet, and Conor Rogers, along with the exhibition Curator, Garth Gratrix. Robert Walters Group, UKNA and Saatchi Gallery look forward to resuming the prize in November 2021.
Artist collections below include editions and originals available for sale, ranging from paintings to ceramics, photography to prints and more. As with The Viewing Room, proceeds will go directly to the artist, and towards supporting UKNA’s community of artists, dancers, makers, poets and musicians.
Header image and all artist portraits are by Reece Straw
Please note that some of the imagery below contains nudity and sexual reference.
Garth Gratrix
Gratrix's work deals with queerness and/or queering; how working with materials, language and space can remain 'slippery', collaborative and curious.
His cross-disciplinary, albeit minimal practice explores formal relationships within given spaces; the tensions between hard to soft, camp to controlled, formal to frolic play out in the choice and arrangement of materials, interrogating how 'queer' is embedded within art and encounter- and the material experiments and everyday performativity these offer us.
The work follows a 'nine-inch' rule derived from an intimate line of questioning from a potential match on a dating app. Garth reclaims and reframes questions around the body, adopting it as a formal language through which to examine expectation, scale, humour, and nonsense as we cruise space and each other in extravert and clandestine ways.
Gratrix lives and works in Blackpool (UK) and inevitably the specifics of the site inform the formal and aesthetic decisions which run through the work. Giving both a glimpse and glitch into a working-class coastal culture.
In 2020 Gratrix is one of five artists selected for the PIVOT award; supported by Castlefield Gallery (Manchester) and The Bluecoat (Liverpool). He is currently mentored by Ceri Hand. Recent exhibitions include Shy Girl, solo exhibition, Grundy Art Gallery, 2020; Queer Contemporaries, Short Supply, AIR Gallery 2020; Warrington Arts Festival, Warrington Art Gallery 2020, and artist in residence Prosjektrom Normanns, Stavanger, Norway 2018. He is founding director of Abingdon Studios- a-n Artist-Led Hot 100 space in the UK.
Morgan Dowdall
Morgan Dowdall is an artist born in South Wales and based in Cardiff. As a graduate of BA (hons) Ceramics at Cardiff School of Art & Design he predominantly works with clay, however Morgan’s artistic practice explores all facets of visual art, ranging from: sculpture, applied arts, surface design to installation. Through these, he explores queer aesthetics and the representation of male bodies throughout art history.
Most recently and with support from Arts Council Wales, Morgan has been working on expanding his two-dimensional practice - using his time in lockdown to turn attention to his own body and his relationship with it. He hopes to depict a male body that is both vulnerable and receiving, confronting a broken sense of masculinity and offsetting the common trope of ‘female as object’ that we are so used to seeing.
Camilla Hanney
Working through ceramics, sculpture and installation Camilla’s practice explores themes of time, sexuality, cultural identity and the corporeal, often referencing the body in both humorous and challenging ways.
Camilla Hanney (b. 1992) is an Irish artist living and working in London. She is a graduate of Goldsmiths University where she studied the Masters of Fine Art programme (2017-2019) and also Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (IADT) where she graduated with a first-class BA honors degree in Visual Arts Practice (2015). Her work has been exhibited by a diverse range of galleries including the South London Gallery in conjunction with Bloomberg New Contemporaries, No. 20 Arts, and The Rosenfeld Gallery. Camilla is the 2019/20 recipient of the Sarabande foundation studio bursary. She was runner up for the inaugural UK Young Artist of the Year Award which was held at Saatchi Gallery. She received the ‘Committee's Choice’ prize at ‘Exceptional’ an exhibition of recent graduate work at Collyer Bristow Gallery and was recently the recipient of the zealous: Sculpture stories prize. Her work has been featured in articles by elephant magazine, wallpapermag, SHOWstudio and Harpers Bazaar.
Will Harman
Humour is at the heart of Harman’s practice. His paintings are fun. Drawing from his memories and image library on his phone, he creates purposely kitsch scenes that are recognisable and accessible. Capturing ordinary moments of collective experience, Harman fills his canvases with stiff and awkward characters detailed with pockets of bright colour. Using gatherings such as birthday parties, family events, nights out and the regulars at the local, Harman’s narratives focus on participation rather than observation, composed with a painterly crudeness for the viewer to confront and enjoy.
Will Harman (b. 1996, London) is a figurative painter based in South London. He completed his BA degree in Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton in 2018. Harman has exhibited as a finalist in the Robert Walters Group – UK Young Artist of the Year Award 2019 and has exhibited in across London and Brighton. Recent exhibitions include, Me Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London; Pick N Mix, Brixton Beneficiary, London; Fandom, Bones and Pearl Studios, London; Where’s the Remote Mum, Gallery Lock In, Brighton.
Malgorzata Lisiecka
Malgorzata Lisiecka is a visual artist based in London. Her practice is located between sculpture, public art, installation, costume, and performance. She tests the boundaries of disciplines, shifting functions of both wearable objects and the body. Her works take into consideration the surrounding space, environment but also the spectators who are often becoming unaware participants of the artwork itself. She explores the social, political and psychological context of fashion and clothes, creating objects that balance on the edge of uncanny, absurd and unreal.
In 2019 she graduated as MA at Royal College of Art in Contemporary Art Practice: Public Sphere, previously completed her MA in Sculpture at Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. She also holds a postgraduate diploma in the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science at Warsaw University. Malgorzata was a finalist of the UK Young Artist of the Year Award 2019. She has participated in various international exhibitions, workshops and collaborative projects such as: Innovative Costume of The XXI Century: The Next Generation in Moscow (2019), costume and spatial design workshops at Prague Quadriennale in 2015 and 2019, participation in Jelili Atiku performance at Venice Biennale in 2017, El Hadji Sy performance in Contemporary Art Centre Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw (2017).
Manon Ouimet
Manon Ouimet is a London-based photographer. In 2019 she received a distinction for an MA in Photography at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Manon engages with notions of identity and the therapeutic values photography can offer, posing difficult yet essential questions regarding body image and visual representation. Her work advocates understanding and compassion while inspiring self-confidence and positivity with the individuals with whom she collaborates. Manon’s work is born from desiring to learn human stories and to celebrate each individual that she photographs. Additionally, with her creative partner she has recently launched Manon et Jacob, a filmmaking and photographic collaborative duo.
Conor Rogers
Burnt out stolen cars, gangs smashing bottles on walls, mums shouting their 5 kids in for dinner, police chasing youths over garden fences, machete wielding drug dealers, kids setting fire to the next door neighbour's wheelie bin. Although I was not conscious of this at the time, my practice began as a kid living on Sheffield Council estates.
Conor Rogers is an award winning Sheffield-based artist and graduate of Sheffield Hallam University. He was shortlisted for the John Moores painting prize 2014, and exhibited as a part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2015 at Primary, Nottingham & ICA, London. Selected shows include Manchester and New York with Paper Gallery 2014, Scottish Queen Gallery, Sheffield 2015. He took part in UKNA’s Festival in Derby 2016, and represented the UK at the ‘Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale’, Albania 2017. He was Shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize 2017 and exhibited in a group show for the British Council and UKNA in South Korea’s National Assembly. In 2018, he presented work in ‘Malevolent Eldritch Shrieking’ curated by Paul Morrison at Attercliffe TM Sheffield. He was again shortlisted for the ‘Agent of Change’ John Ruskin Prize 2019 exhibition in Manchester. In 2019 Conor was named as the Winner of the Robert Walters Group UK Young Artist of the Year Award held at the Saatchi Gallery London.
With thanks to our partners, Robert Walters Group for their generous support of emerging artists and UKNA.
