The Ingram Prize 2021 - prizewinners and selected artists

If you're starting out on your career and lean very much towards the very contemporary side of making art then you may well be interested in the Ingram Prize - which has just announced its 2021 prizewinners

What is the Ingram Prize?

The Ingram Prize was established by The Ingram Collection 6 years ago. It is:

• an annual purchase prize & exhibition 
• to celebrate and support artists at the beginning of their professional careers.

There is no prize money as such - however it provides:

• the opportunity to exhibit and sell work, 
• attend a programme of continuing professional development, and 
• the chance to develop both industry and peer-to-peer networks.

Artists who can enter are visual artists within five years of graduation from a UK based art school (undergraduate or postgraduate level).

Entry is free, and artists can submit up to two works in any media, with no restrictions on size.

The rewards for those selected are:

• Group selling exhibition for all finalists; 
• opportunity to attend a day of professional development seminars; 
• exhibition catalogue; 
• private view/networking event; 
• opportunity to apply for a residency project. 

2021 Ingram Prize

The winners of the Ingram Prize 2021 were announced last night at the Private View for the Exhibition currently being held in the Unit 1 Gallery, 1 Bard Road, London W10 6TP until 26 November 2021

2021 Prizewinners

There were four prize winners in total. 

The Founders Choice Award went to Figures on a Bed by James Dearlove (see below) who will be offered a museum solo show in 2022.

Using old newspapers as a canvas, upon which to depict sprawled male bodies, Dearlove explains:

“This painting is a contemporary urban landscape of queer bodies and demonstrates the desire and disquietude that are central concerns in my work. I am preoccupied with how light falls on flesh and how bodies can coalesce with their surroundings. This painting is informed by my experience of living as a queer man in the heart of London. When I had a studio in Vauxhall (which could be called a very gay part of London) I was aware that all around me gay men were meeting on hook-up apps for anonymous sex and drug-taking. I felt I couldn't ignore this intense and strange human interaction as subject matter however transgressive or hard to understand especially as it was going on in my community. 

I painted on random squares of old newspaper which I de-acidified so as to ensure the longevity of the painting. I chose newspaper because the printed matter interrupts the surface and interferes with the painted marks with a kind of soft violence that I found appropriate and beautiful. I also like the counterplay between the intimacy of the bodies but also their anonymity and the anonymity of the city and the twenty-four-hour news cycle.”

Artwork by three more artists will be purchased for The Ingram Collection.  In essence 

• Anna Perach (Daphne), 
• Anietie Ekanem, (Yemaya o Yemoja)
• Katharina Fitz (Pupa and Queen) 

You can also see those selected for the exhibition

• on the Ingram Prize website
• in the online exhibition catalogue on Issuu

The other 2021 finalists were (in alphabetical order): 

• Bianca Barandun (Royal College of Art, 2017)
• Ingrid Berthon-Moine (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2017)
• Fiona Campbell (Bath Spa University, 2018)
• Mae Chan (Royal College of Art, 2021)
• Marc-Aurèle Debut (Royal College of Art, 2020)
• Anne von Freyburg (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2016)
• Lisa-Marie Harris (Central Saint Martins, 2021)
• Clara Hastrup (Royal Academy Schools, 2021)
• Selby Hurst Inglefield (Central Saint Martins, 2019)
• Elizabeth Jackson (Royal College of Art, 2021)
• Marie-Louise Jones (Central Saint Martins, 2021)
• Orna Kazimi (Central Saint Martins, 2018)
• Hugo Lami (Royal College of Art, 2019)
• Max Limbu (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2020)
• Liam Mertens (Slade School of Fine Art, 2019)
• Isobel Napier (Slade School of Fine Art, 2018)
• Abi Ola (Slade School of Fine Arts, 2021)
• Ryan Orme (Slade School of Fine Art, 2019)
• Ella Porter (Royal College of Art, 2019)
• Luke Silva (Central Saint Martins, 2021)
• Gayi Soori (Central Saint Martins, 2020)
• Olivia Strange (Chelsea College of Arts, 2017)
• Liorah Tchiprout (Camberwell College of Arts, 2020)
• Mircea Teleagă (Slade School of Fine Art, 2016)
• Maddie Yuille (City & Guilds of London Art School, 2019)

This year’s Ingram Prize encompassed a variety of themes, including the environment, queer-femme experience, body image, immigration, and the pandemic, with the shortlisted finalists - from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Denmark and New Zealand, France, Ukraine plus Trinidad & Tobago - entering work in a broad variety of different media, from ceramics, oils, and watercolour, to video, tapestry, and found / recycled objects.

The Ingram Collection

Founded in 2002 by serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Chris Ingram, the collection spans over 100 years of British art and includes over 600 artworks.  More than 400 of these are by some of the most important British artists of the 20th century, amongst them Edward Burra, Lynn Chadwick, Elisabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth and Eduardo Paolozzi. 

The main focus of the collection is on the art movements that developed in the early and middle decades of the 20th century, and there is a particularly strong and in-depth holding of 20th century British sculpture.