Championing making practices in UK art schools

In 2020, as part of the Foundation’s ongoing research into approaches to art education, we established the Painting Prize. The award was about developing an understanding of what is happening in the tertiary sector, specifically around the teaching and learning of painting. 

The higher education sector has gone through incredible changes over the past half-century. In 1971 the painter Patrick Heron wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper entitled, “The Murder of the Art Schools”. Responding to then recent government legislation and the introduction of polytechnics, Heron argued that the policy change would result in art schools disappearing, replaced with faculties in multi-subject institutions, and led by non-artists. Successive changes, including the 1992 act enabling polytechnics to become universities, have meant that many of Heron’s rather pessimistic predictions have come true.

Now, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, art schools have all but disappeared as discrete institutions and the landscape is utterly changed. Nonetheless we knew that, in the faculties of Fine Art that have largely replaced them, outstanding teaching and work was going on, and the Painting Prize was a way for us to investigate where and how to showcase the results.

Alongside these legislative and organisational changes, the 1970s saw art schools moving away from medium-specific degrees – including painting – and beginning to experiment with general Fine Art courses, in which students were encouraged to explore a range of media and use whatever medium was most appropriate for realising their concept. The idea was king. The art world seems to exist in a cycle where we go from ‘painting is dead’ through to a resurgent interest and back again, over and over, and recently a new interest in painting has emerged, and courses with ‘painting’ in the title have begun to return.

The importance of painting has been an area of debate for some decades. There is an argument to suggest that a focus on a single medium encourages students to push against the perceived boundaries of that medium and explore its imagined limits in provocative and exciting ways, with the result that not everyone studying on a painting course ends up making paintings.

In focusing the Prize on painting, we have emphasised the continued importance of engagement with materials, as a means of championing material process and experimentation in the face of the neoliberalisation of the university model and the pressures on having the space to make – both psychologically and physically – within higher education institutions.

We contacted every single art school, university and college in the UK that runs undergraduate courses in either Painting or Fine Art and invited them to select a single final-year student, and work by that student, for consideration for the prize. We left the definition of painting up to each institution, in recognition of the importance of the expanded field and the shift in thinking about what constitutes a painting. We also left open the format for the process of nomination, which has led to some very inventive approaches for selection. Some institutions have asked the staff to select nominations. Others have set up internal competitions and open exhibitions, from which the nomination is chosen. In one case, the final year students submitted works for a 'group crit' session and then anonymously voted for the work they felt should represent their course. 

Each year, the nominations have been considered by an independent jury, who select the winning paintings and artists to feature in an exhibition and accompanying publication. Involving such a diverse range of voices in this process has been tremendously rewarding for us as an organisation, and for the jurors. Because the nominations are looked at anonymously the jurors are selecting the works that speak to them most, without potential prejudices about what comes from where. It has led to a very exciting diversity.

In 2022, juror Habda Rashid spoke about the breadth of work making the judging process most difficult, but nonetheless immensely rewarding ⁽¹⁾. When writing for the publication that accompanied the 2024 exhibition, juror Michael Archer wrote that “the old categories – portrait, genre, landscape, history, abstraction – are not exhausted or exhaustible because they encompass all that exists or could be imagined.” ⁽²⁾ 

As the prize has evolved, we have received nominations from more institutions and our understanding of the sector, and of where painting is being taught, how painting is being taught, who painting is being taught by, and to whom, has grown. In some cases, we have been approached by institutions we didn’t know existed, or whom we were unaware ran painting courses. It has been a journey of discovery.

In 2022, juror Matt Price noted, “while painting is, in a sense, timeless, there is no time like the present.” ⁽³⁾ The prize has operated as a survey of trends and interests and each iteration has given us a terrific overview of how the context that students find themselves in – their present – has impacted their approaches. 

The phenomenon of the global pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, meant that many students found themselves working remotely, in domestic spaces, often ill-suited to making paintings. We saw the scale of work being made shrink, as one might expect, and we also saw an increased introspection, a growth in those artists using painting as a way of exploring their particular circumstances.

In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, as the world opened up, there was an explosion of works that embraced the possibilities of going large once more. “Painting,” as Freelands Programme Curator Giulia Vandelli stated, “is persistently reinvented to reflect the inextricably complex reality painters live in.”⁽⁴⁾ Over the past five years, we have seen such a breadth of painting practices that the prize stands as a clear testament to the continued strength and inventiveness in painting, and art education, in the United Kingdom. 

Of course, the pandemic brought other challenges, compounding the already difficult circumstances students and teachers of painting were finding themselves in. Some institutions moved away from physical degree shows, initially as a necessary reality, but not everyone has brought them back. It has meant that the decision to host a physical exhibition has become a political one too, when physical spaces in universities are under constant threat and the economics of higher education increasingly drive policy over educational ideologies. The Painting Prize has acted as a means of championing making practices and material exploration in the face of these threats, as well as a way to support emerging artists and the institutions out of which they graduate. 

A prize is a celebration. It raises the status of the work being made. In addition to validating the artist and the institution they come from, being included in the exhibition provides a valuable learning experience for emerging artists. For many, the Painting Prize is their first institutional art world experience, and it offers them the opportunity to learn practical skills that are fundamental to exhibiting professionally—liaising with galleries, packing and transporting artworks, documenting their work and producing accompanying materials—but are often not taught in art schools. 

In this way, the Painting Prize also reflects our interest in and commitment to continued learning beyond formal institutions. We are dedicated to exploring alternative methods and spaces in which learning can take place, unencumbered by the various restrictions imposed by contemporary educational institutions, from the diminishment of art curricula and spaces for making, to the chronic under-resourcing of teachers. 

The undeniable strength of nominated artworks can seem like a form of resistance when it feels as though we are in a perpetual position of having to defend art education, to justify its very existence and to battle against the overwhelming rhetoric that prioritises more academic subjects and more economically viable courses. There is no doubt that we are living in challenging times. Numbers of students opting to undertake GCSEs and A levels in Art are on the decline, and universities are pulling courses and reducing funding. 

As education is seen through the narrow lens of future employability and operates more and more as a business, it is increasingly difficult to be heard when arguing for the benefits of studying art. The enthusiasm of institutions in participating has been heartening: a demonstration of the liveliness of painting practices fostered across the country, despite these challenges. 

We are continually reflecting on our work and thinking about how it will develop in the future. Our commitment to learning about and championing art education at all levels is paramount. The prize continues to play an important role in helping us maintain an overview of teaching and learning in universities. It is important that we remain responsive to the findings, and to the sector at large, adapting and refining our programmes to ensure that they remain relevant. We are excited by what we have learnt over the past five years and by what we will go on to learn in the future. 

1. Habda Rashid. “The Possibilities of Painting.” In Freelands Painting Prize 2022, 6. London: Freelands Foundation, 2022.
2. Michael Archer. “Spaces of Contest.” In Freelands Painting Prize 2024, 9–15. London: Freelands Foudation, 2022.
3. Matt Price. “No Time Like the Present.” In Freelands Painting Prize 2022, 31–35. London: Freelands Foundation, 2022.
4. Giulia Vandelli. “Foreword.” In Freelands Foundation Painting Prize 2024, 5–6. London: Freelands Foundation, 2024.

The Freelands Painting Prize celebrates outstanding painting by final year students attending art schools and universities across the UK. Each year, every higher education institution offering an undergraduate course in either Fine Art or Painting in the UK is invited to nominate a graduating student and their work for the prize. An independent jury then selects the winning painting and artists for inclusion in an exhibition and accompanying publication.

Launched in 2020, the prize extends the Foundation’s ongoing support for artists, emerging practices and art education. Year on year, the prize also offers a broad survey of the development of the way painting is taught, thought about and practiced in art schools, and an insight into its shifting status in higher education syllabi, with approximately 90 universities and art schools delivering undergraduate courses in either Fine Art or Painting in the UK counted in 2023.

2024 | Ali Cook (Newcastle University), Iona Gordon (Kingston School of Art, Kingston University), Bunny Hennessey (City & Guilds of London Art School), Leila Hussain (University of Suffolk), Denny Kaulbach (Goldsmiths, University of London), Anugrah Mishra (Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University), Varshga Premarasa (Middlesex University), Benedict Robinson (Bath School of Art Film and Media, Bath Spa University), Shannon Ward (University of Wolverhampton), Parker White (University of Lincoln), Jack Woolley (The Art Academy) and Unica Yabiku (Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London).

Jury: Michael Archer (writer and art critic), Vanessa Carlos (Founder and Director, Carlos/Ishikawa gallery), Séamus McCormack (curator) and Zadie Xa (artist), chaired by Henry Ward (Director of Freelands Foundation).

2023 | Kirsty Bell (Gray's School of Art, Robert Gordon University), Chloe Culley (Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University), Sean Davidson (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee), Edward Jones (City & Guilds of London Art School), Chrysa Kanari (Lancaster University), Agelos Kotzias (University for the Creative Arts Farnham, Emma Leadbetter (Kingston School Art, Kingston University), Jessica Lewis (University of Northampton), Marta Pedzik (Coventry University), Holly Smith (Northumbria University), Dhama Thanigasapapathy (Open College of the Arts) and Rosie Tuff (University of Brighton).

Jury: Harminder Judge (artist), Emily LaBarge (writer), Jenni Lomax (curator) and Sid Motion (gallerist).

2022 | Natalie Joanna Gibson (Belfast School of Art, Ulster University), Finn Johnson (City and Guilds of London Art School),
Rachel Bride Ashton (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee),Bomi Kim (Goldsmiths, University of London), Emma Hall (Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University) Shauna Weldon Taylor (Grŵp Llandrillo Menai), Gregory Howard (Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University), Fa Razavi (Middlesex University), Okiki Akinfe (The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL),
 Daisy Steed (Solent University) and Adam Charlton (Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David).

Jury: Simeon Barclay (artist), Louise Giovanelli (artist), Matt Price (writer and founder of Anomie Publishing) and Habda Rashid (Curator of Modern & Contemporary British Art, Kettle’s Yard and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

2021 | Sophie Baskerville (Liverpool Hope University), Tom Hall Boehringer (University of Reading), Eleanor Daly (Goldsmiths, University of London), Richard Dražan (University of Derby), Rebecca Foster-Clarke (Norwich University of the Arts), Mabelle Furlong (Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton), Freddie Ingoldby (Newcastle University), Augusta Lardy (City and Guilds of London Art School), Nicola McManus (Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University) and Sunim Rai (Middlesex University).

Jury: Jennifer Higgie (writer and editor-at-large, frieze), Joe Hill (Director, Towner Contemporary), painter Matthew Krishanu and Ralph Rugoff (Director, Hayward Gallery)

2020 | Lewis Deeney (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee), Charlotte Guérard (University of Brighton), Georgina Harris (Lancaster University), Michael Hanrahan (Plymouth College of Art), Fischer Mustin (Manchester Metropolitan University); Stuart Rayner (University for the Creative Arts Canterbury), Jack Whitelock (Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh) and Anna Woodward (City & Guilds of London Art School).

Jury: Liz Gilmore (Director of Hastings Contemporary), Elisabeth Murdoch (Founder and Chair of Freelands Foundation), Ben Street (art historian and writer) and Clare Woods (painter).