Art Competitions
Over £80,000 of prizes, Amy Sherald paints Breonna Taylor, new arts jobs & a landscape exhibition
Prizes, Commissions & Residencies
Some well funded art competitions closing soon and new open calls announced. Full details on Art Competitions Page, direct links & closing dates below.
Jerwood Makers Open - £8,000 to 5 early-career UK-based artists (26th Aug)
Aesthetica Art Prize - £5,000 first prize, £1,000 Emerging Prize (31st Aug)
South London Gallery - £6,000 for 6 month postgraduate residency (1st Sep)
g39 Fellowship Programme (pdf) - £10,000 over 2 years for Welsh artist (1st Sep)
Turner Contemporary - £3,000 digital commission for disabled artist (4th Sep)
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize - £15,000 first prize (22nd Sep)
Realist & Lyrical Landscapes
“Raw” by Helen Glassford - £700, (2020) Oil on board, 30 x 39cm
Six artists with “a sense of awe for the natural beauty of a northern environment & the power of nature to transform” show at Edinburgh’s Scottish Gallery (2nd-26th Sep)
Art Materials Offers
65% off Creative Cloud All Apps for students & teachers (1st month free, ends 10th Sep)
20% discount on Daler Rowney System 3 products at Cass Art (ends 31st Aug)
15% off Jackson’s Art Watercolour Brushes (ends 4th Sep)
Breonna Taylor by Amy Sherald
Such a powerful, strong image by Amy Sherald (the artist who painted Michelle Obama) for a special issue of Vanity Fair guest edited by the excellent Ta-Nehisi Coates. His interview with Breonna’s mum is heartbreaking.
“Sherald took extraordinary care in reimagining Taylor, inflecting her portrait with symbols of the 26-year-old’s life. Sherald found a young woman with similar physical attributes, studied Taylor’s hairstyles and fashion choices, and drew inspiration from things she learned about the young woman—that she had been a frontline worker in the battle against COVID-19; that her boyfriend had been about to propose marriage; that she was self-possessed, brave, loving, loved.”
More on Sherald’s process and motivation for creating the painting.
Arts Jobs
New art jobs this week in England, Scotland, Wales, NI & Ireland.
The Flying Train
Shot on super clear 68mm film in 1902, this two-minute film of a German suspended railway is a strangely moving, surreal slice of time travel. Colourised, upscaled and stabilised by Denis Shiryaev (via Kottke, who prefers the original).
Good News
The Louvre, UNESCO, and other cultural organisations have grouped together to give $5 million in ‘Cultural First Aid’ to Beirut - including the National Museum and Sursock Museum featured in last weeks issue.
Gotham…
See you next week,
Grant