Two Drawing Awards: Winners & Future Exhibitions

This post is about

• The Trinity Buoy Drawing Prize and highlights
• its background
• details about the 2023 Exhibition and Artists
• the award winners in 2023 - plus as much as I can glean from what they've revealed about themselves online!
• future exhibitions around the UK in 2024
• the Biennial Evelyn Williams Drawing Award £10,000 - selected from artists exhibiting as part of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize Exhibition.

First of all - mea culpa. I completely forgot to go down to Trinity Buoy Wharf (not the easiest of places to get to) for the exhibition of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.

The exhibition in London closed on Sunday but is now going on tour around the UK in 2024 to:

• The Gallery, Arts University Bournemouth, 16 February to 12 April 2024;
• The Arts Institute, Plymouth University, 4 May to 29 June 2024;
• The Turnpike Gallery, Leigh (run by Wigan Council) 13 July to 14 September 2024.

It's very sad that there's no online exhibition - which is almost standard practice for all art competitions these days. There is apparently a fully illustrated exhibition publication - although I'm not sure how people can get hold of this.

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize

Basically this is a Drawing Prize created in 1994 by Professor Anita Taylor who is currently the Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee and Director of Drawing Projects UK.

Over the years, it has been known by various different names as she has been involved in founding and judging a drawing prizes using various different titles/names over a number of years with various sponsors and held in various places - while she moved around the country in various art academic roles. 

None of the prizes in previous incarnations continue to exist - and yet there's a notion they are all the same prize despite the names of different sponsors. It's not a notion that I've seen previously referenced but there's no doubt that the underlying continuity is essentially that one person invented the prize and is involved with them all.  I've never been quote able to understand why it's not called the Anita Taylor Drawing Prize plus the name of whoever is the current sponsor.  (A bit like the Lynn Painter Stainers Prize operated)

Apparently her listing of research output identifies a number of the drawing exhibitions as just that "non-textual research outputs" - which surprised me - and then it didn't.

I'm not a fan of this individual for a very specific reason relating to a different competition - which some of you may remember - but let's just leave it at that.

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is supported by the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust.

In 2023, there were

• over 3,000 submissions
• from 1,450 candidates
• representing 40 countries.

123 drawings by 111 practitioners were shortlisted for inclusion in the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023 exhibition were selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023 exhibition

The Awards in 2023 with a total value of £27,000 in 2023 - being in two parts:

• £15,000 for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 
• First Prize of £8,000,
• Second Prize of £5,000,
• Student Award of £2,000
• Judged by:
• Laura Hoptman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center, New York;
• Dennis Scholl AM, Collector, Arts Patron, President & CEO of Oolite Arts;
• Barbara Walker MBE RA, British Artist (and first winner of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award 2017)

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Prizewinners 2023

Interestingly, three of the four prizewinners drew buildings. The prizewinners were announced at a Launch and Awards Announcement on 28 September 2023
 

First Prize £8,000

Jeanette Barnes won the first Prize of £8,000.

Her drawing, as always, is a charcoal drawing of a buildings which is huge - as both subject and drawing - and is also associated with a major new development in London. In this instance the drawing is related to the development of the new Battersea Tube Station and the surrounding area.

Jeanette Barnes' award-winning work is a dizzyingly immersive and dynamic portrayal of Battersea's development in London, anchored by the new underground station. Battersea power station’s iconic chimneys only just edge into the picture, which focuses on the rise of newer buildings, and the ebb and flow of people. The work’s scale, 1.50 metres by 2.13 metres, invites viewers to step inside the drawing, feeling the vibrant and chaotic energy of the bustling city. The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize Announces 2023 Winners

New Battersea Tube Station & Developments (2023) by Jeanette Barnes
Compressed charcoal on paper, 150 x 213cm.