Selected artists for John Moores Painting Prize 2020

The Judges have worked their way through 3,000 entries and just 67 artists have got a painting into the biennial exhibition of the John Moores Painting Prize 2020, the UK’s oldest painting prize.

Past prize winners have included include David Hockney (1967), Peter Doig (1993), and Rose Wylie (2014). Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is patron of the Prize.

The John Moores Painting Prize is organised in partnership with the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust. The exhibition will be held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool between 12 February – 27 June 2021 as part of Liverpool Biennial 2021, the largest festival of contemporary art in the UK, taking place across the city’s public spaces, galleries and museums from 20 March to 6 June 2021.

I wrote about the exhibition in February this year in Call for Entries: £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize 2020 + NEW Prize and this post tells you a lot more about the background to the prize and how it works - which I'm not going to repeat here.

All images © Robin Clewley 

Selection Process

In its more than 60 year history the Prize has evolved but one fundamental rule has remained the same; paintings are judged anonymously, allowing the works to speak for themselves and giving the process and final exhibition a unique authenticity.

The Jury for the 2020 Exhibition are:

• Michelle Williams Gamaker - an artist working with moving image and performance.
• Jennifer Higgie - staff writer and Editor-at-large of Frieze magazine, and the writer and presenter of Bow Down; the podcast about women in art history.
• Gu Wenda, an artist born in Shanghai. 
• Hurvin Anderson, a painter whose work explores spaces occupied by Caribbean immigrants
• Alison Goldfrapp - a British-based artist who studied fine art at Middlesex University before embarking on a career in music that has spanned more than 26 years.

The jury also 

• select a final shortlist of five paintings, from which the £25,000 first prize winning work will be chosen and four additional prizes of £2,500 will be awarded. 
• identify the recipient of the first £2,500 Emerging Artist Prize, supported by Winsor & Newton.

The names of the five prizewinning artists will be shared in January 2021

The names of the first prize winner and the Emerging Artist Prize will be announced at the opening of the exhibition.

John Moores Painting Prize 2020 judges.
From left to right, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Hurvin Anderson, Gu Wenda and Jennifer Higgie.  

For the first time in the history of the Prize the judging was all done online. 

High spec cameras, screens, speakers and AV software allowed judges to appreciate the scale, texture and detail of the works in real time (see below)

“Judging the John Moores Painting Prize this year at a distance presented a new challenge in the Prize’s history. Instead of standing with the artworks we zoomed right in, carefully scanning the surface of each painting. Ultimately our decisions were based on a number of themes that emerged and resonated with the other jurors in our collective discussions. We were deeply inspired by all of the artists from Stage 2 who showed clear commitment, talent and love for painting. We could feel this through the technology, that enabled us to view the work, and it was so inspiring to see artists achieve this, particularly in these uncertain times.”  Michelle Williams Gamaker

 

Selected Artists

67 paintings were  longlisted for the exhibition from almost 3,000 entries.  All the images below were taken during the selection process. You may see your painting - but it also gives people an idea of the sort of paintings that are entered.

The artists selected to exhibit paintings in the John Moores Painting Prize 2020 are as follows. I've highlighted artists I've previously featured on this blog - plus added in those who have tweeted about the selection

B

• Dohyun Baek - Mom's Birthday Follows the Lunar Calendar
• Nicola Bealing - The Horse
• G L Brierley - Untitled (Corpo)
• Rory Biddulph - Smoker
• Louise Bristow - Citizens
• Hannah Brown - Hedge 4
• Lindsey Bull - The moors
• Robbie Bushe - The Neanderthal Futures Infirmary

C

• Mary Castle-Millner - Man with a Hose
• Leah Michelle Cayol - Lickkle Man
• Lara Cobden - A Year of Ghost Wishes
• Noemi S Conan - Las, Laska, Lass (Hilary Emerging)
• Paul Crook - Yellow Escalator

D

• Peter Davis - Wetin dey
• Pedro De Siqueira - Note to Karen from finance: can power transcend?
• Sam Douglas - Standing Stone
• Michelle Dovey - Bird Tree 2019

E

• Sarah J Earnshaw - Hazel Grundy, 1988
• Liz Elton - Tender

F

• Maria Farrar - Pearl Necklace
• Alan Fears - The Paper Tiger
• Michele Fletcher - Compost
• Max Fletcher and Andrea Celeste La Forgia (collaboration) - Postcard to A.G.

G

• Tricia Gillman - MOMENTS 1: Mind's Eye
• Rachel Glittenberg - Night Swimmers
• Melanie Goemans - Hawthorn (triptych)

Some wonderful news to share #MelanieGoemans painting ‘Hawthorn (triptych)’ has been selected as part of the prestigious @JMPaintingPrize 2020
Huge congratulations to Melanie, seen here at Cornwall Contemporary with two of her exquisite paintings, which can be seen on our website pic.twitter.com/1gI7kPW6qi

— CornwallContemporary (@sarah_cornwall) November 5, 2020

• Steph Goodger - The Motherland
• Massimiliano Gottardi - Jung /Jungle (spatial crease)
• Robin Greenwood - Untitled

H

• Christopher Hanson - Mother
• Lily Hargreaves - Didn't That Used to be Part of the Fun?
• Rebecca Harper - Between Two Worlds
• Georgia Hayes - Proboscis Crossing
• Michael Hempstead - Dead Soul's Boogie-Woogie: Dancing Now

J

• David Jacques - Sargasso
• Alison Jones - Connoisseur (my 1970s)

K

• Caroline E Kent - Two Minute Silence
• Sally Kindberg - Hang Loose
• Matthew Krishanu - Riverboat

L

• Laura Lancaster - Invocation
• LANTAIN - HORTUS CONCLUSUS: Le Rouge et le Noir
• Stephen Lee - March
• Brendan Lyons - Plasticity Horizon - an artist based in Liverpool.

M

• Kathryn Maple - The Common - Kathryn won the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Winner 2014 and 2016 (see my blog posts for 2014 and 2016). She now works in acrylic and oils.
• Peter Matthews - Summer Sequoia
• Barry McGlashan - Klavierkonzert
• Robert McPartland - Field 2. Grapefruit.

O

• Pat O'Connor (Mrs Walter Lang)
• Laurence Owen - A Plant Fizzing with Air Bubbles Bursting in its Plumbing
• Sikelela Owen - The Knitter

P

• Shanti Panchal - The Terrace - Shanti was one of the five artists shortlisted for the Prize in 2018. moved from India to work in Britain in 1978 and has developed a unique approach to watercolour painting which means, for me at least, his painting style is one of the most recognisable I know. He has been selected for numerous art competitions

During my early years in London, and while travelling to Europe and America, I observed that, historically, the potentials of watercolour had not been explored to the same extent as those of oil and acrylic. Watercolour paintings were too limited to pretty flowers and sweet landscapes. It was a very frustrating experience. I was not prepared to accept the conventional limits of the medium.

I started working obsessively, even to the point of damage, from 12’x6′ canvas to 12″x6″ paper. To achieve depth, the colour has to penetrate the paper. I do not mix colours on a palette but directly on the paper itself. Through the process of hammering and scraping the surface, shifting images and ideas, working and reworking, my success and failure have become an integral part of the painting. I use layers and layers of colour – layers and layers of life’s experiences injecting into the very fibre of my existence, so ecstatic and at the same time so suicidal.

• Mandy Payne - Remnants of a Welfare State
• Lyle Perkins - O.R.B
• Katie Pratt - Darnington

R

• William Riding - The Geometer
• Philippa Robbins - Cactus Against a Blue Wall - Also selected - with 3 artwork - for the ING Discerning Eye 2020

S

• Miho Sato - Windy Day
• Brian Sayers - Encounter
• Caroline Streatfield - Portal
• Annika Ström - I am Curious Pink (no.1 of The One Hundred) 2020
• Edward Sutcliffe - Floral Painting 1 - Edward won the BP Portrait Travel Award 2014

V

• Nicholas Vaughan - Tunnel of Tusk
• Kiki Xuebing Wang - Untitled (Loafer)

W

• Harry Whitelock - I'll Break My Neck For You
• Charles Williams - Watercolourist Mask - Artist, writer, lecturer, illustrator and Venice Biennale participant (Website | Instagram | Facebook). Charles won Heat 1 in Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2020
• George Wills - Paranoia

Y

• Fleur Yearsley - To The Moon & Back

“This exhibition is an extraordinary chapter in the John Moores Painting Prize’s long history. From the Call for Entries which launched just weeks before the first national lockdown, to the challenge of bringing together hundreds of paintings from across the UK, we’re delighted to have got to this stage and to finally have a truly exciting longlist."
Sandra Penketh, Director of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool