"Painting has always flourished under adversity: its accessibility, along with its familiarity with symbol and metaphor, has the potential to accommodate upheaval in myriad ways."
Jennifer Higgie, writer and juror, Freelands Painting Prize 2021
The Freelands Painting Prize 2021 publication features information about each of the ten winning works and graduate painters, alongside an essay by writer Jennifer Higgie and a foreword by Henry Ward (Creative Director, Freelands Foundation).
The experience of the graduate students over the last year has been truly unique, as half their degree has taken place under some form of lockdown. Midway through their second year, the graduates were forced to leave their art school spaces to continue their practice in student flats and in the kitchens and bedrooms of parental homes, while their courses shifted from in-person and studio-centred to online and distanced learning.
The influential figures in the art sector on this year's jury were struck by a number of interesting trends in the works submitted. Above all, many of the paintings were smaller in scale than those submitted in the previous year, a direct response to the unsuitable domestic spaces the students found themselves in. During the chaos of this extraordinary year, these art students found new spaces to paint, both literally and metaphorically, and developed new and inspiring ways of making their work.
Artists: Sophie Baskerville, Tom Hall Boehringer, Eleanor Daly, Richard Dražan, Rebecca Foster-Clarke, Mabelle Furlong, Freddie Ingoldby, Augusta Lardy, Nicola McManus and Sunim Rai.
Published in 2021, 43 pages, designed by HATO
