Liverpool Art Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced
Now in its fourth year, the prestigious prize founded by top British art blog Artinliverpool.com reveals 2011’s shortlist for the Liverpool Art Prize.
The Shortlisted Artists
• Brendan Lyons (www.brendanlyons.co.uk)
• Bernadette O’Toole (www.bernadetteo.tumblr.com)
• Richard Proffitt (www.richardproffitt.co.uk)
• Markus Soukup (www.thebluecoat.org.uk/gallery/markus-soukup)
Chosen from an open nomination process of over 60 artists based in Liverpool City Region, the shortlist represents the best and most cutting-edge contemporary art being produced in the region right now. Each artist has exhibited in the previous year and are connected to Liverpool’s leading studio groups. They represent a wide range of diverse visual art practices including painting, installation and film.
The panel of expert judges are:
• Laura Davis (Arts Editor, Liverpool Daily Post)
• Moira Lindsay (Curator, Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool)
• David Jacques (Artist, winner of 2010 Liverpool Art Prize)
• Paul Domela (Curator, Liverpool Biennial)
• Paul Hyland (Exhibition sponsor, Duncan Sheard Glass)
On Wednesday 1st June they will judge the overall winner who will be awarded £2000 based on the work that will be exhibited at Metal, Edge Hill station from Friday 6 May to Saturday 11 June. The exhibition will be curated by Metal Project Manager, Jenny Porter.
The winning artists will also be given the opportunity to show their work at the Walker Art Gallery. Last year’s prize winner David Jacques will be exhibiting ‘The Irlam House Bequest’ there from 2 February to 3 April 2011.
There is also a £1000 People’s Choice Award chosen by the public voting at the gallery. Last year’s winner was painter James Quin.
Ian Jackson, Director of Artinliverpool.com said:
“We are delighted to be presenting the Liverpool Art Prize again in partnership with METAL and with another excellent short list of four local artists. We are especially pleased that despite the current difficult economic climate we are continuing to promote and support artists with the help of our sponsors and supporters. We are looking forward to this, the fourth, annual exhibition which we hope will inspire artists and public alike.”
About the Shortlisted artists
Brendan Lyons
Through experimentation with the techniques of painting, and the material of artists’ paint itself, Brendan Lyons uses the traditions and references of Western painting as a base from which to investigate various issues of interest.
Brendan Lyons’ paintings are made of artists’ paint alone. The entire surface, structure, and support consist of paint. A cross-section cut between any two points of any one painting, would reveal only paint. The paintings are then fixed to the wall using further artists’ paint as an adhesive. This leaves just one element (paint) attached to the wall.
The paintings are often placed directly into the urban environment, and they sit convincingly within a dual context of the contemporary built environment and the formal boundaries of Painting. What may appear to be bricks, polythene sheets, various types of tape, builder’s orange safety netting, sheets of corrugated metal or cardboard, and other discarded packaging – are in fact just unsupported paint alone.
Brendan Lyons currently lives and works in Liverpool, England.
Recent exhibitions include: ‘Pile’ at Chapter, Cardiff, 2011, and Surface Gallery, Nottingham, 2010, ‘Brendan Lyons’ The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Sept – Nov 2010 and ‘FringeMK Painting Prize’ Milton Keynes, July 6 – August 6, 2010
Bernadette O’Toole
Bernadette O’Toole lives and works in the UK, she is currently based at the Bluecoat Studios Liverpool and is represented by BITR Gallery Gainsborough.
O’Toole’s paintings, drawings and recent installations reflect her ongoing fascination with the architectural spaces we construct, both real and imagined, and our relationship to these spaces.
O’Toole’s work is characterized by highly individual combinations of figurative and abstract elements. The constructed spaces in her paintings seem to operate on a sensory level, conscious of the observer and the way in which seeing is interchangeable with revelation. O’Toole’s considered handling of the paint is used as an illusionistic device, as a sensory mode of apprehension. This is a restless world of edges and planes, charged with an emotional energy which if fugitive and illusive, can be captured and held on the surface of the painting. Her more recent circular paintings suggesting unpopulated landscapes where planes collide and distort giving rise to complex and unstable readings.
Recent Exhibitions include: London Art Fair 2011, Marmite Painting Prize 2011, Turning up the Quiet, The Globe Gallery, Newcastle 2010, and Turning up the Quiet, Liverpool Biennial 2010
Richard Proffitt
Richard Proffitt (b. 1985) is an artist living and working in Liverpool, UK. His work is inspired by and references the anthropology of ancient civilizations, teenage idols, ghost towns, curio ephemera, post-apocalyptic sci-fi films, spaghetti westerns, underground and slacker sub-culture, classroom humour and childhood memory.
These inspirations become intertwined and their meaning mangled, producing work that is absurd, funny, dark and mysterious. The work will often become realised as make-shift ceremonial relics or ritualistic hang-outs.
Recent exhibitions include: Shooting The Breeze, The Cooperative, Liverpool, 2010, Krimskrams, Cartel Gallery, London, 2010, Dream Machine, Metal at Edge Hill, Liverpool, 2010 and Global Studio, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, 2010.
Markus Soukup
Markus Soukup is a New Media and Sound artist living and working in Liverpool since 2003. He has been based at the Bluecoat since 2008.
He is interested in how an object, image or moving image can communicate its intended content or expression by still enabling freedom of interpretation on realistic and abstract levels.
His work is situated mainly in the context of installation and the moving image incorporating video, 2D and 3D animation. Fascinated by the screen as a window opening up to the virtual space, he searches for a way of incorporating new technologies to install or position ‘situations’ or ‘mental objects’ in both – real and virtual – spaces. Other areas of his work are digital photography, typography, graphic and interactive design, field recordings, sound design and electronic music.
Previous exhibitions include: Lost Soul and Stranger Service Station (at the Bluecoat) during the Liverpool Biennial 2010, the New Media Art Festival in Seoul (Korea) in 2010, the 11th International Media Art Biennial – WRO 05 in Wroclaw (Poland) 2005 and numerous other local, national and international exhibitions and festivals.
About the Liverpool Art Prize
Artinliverpool.com founded the Liverpool Art Prize in early 2008. It was one of the first major art events in the Capital of Culture year. It is now a firmly established part of Liverpool’s annual visual art diary, hosted in partnership with Metal at Edge Hill.
The exhibition and prizes acknowledge the outstanding achievements of the artists and their contribution to contemporary art within Liverpool, as well as further afield. It aims to promote national awareness and discussion of contemporary art in the city and to support individual artists in developing their practices.
It is an annual exhibition and award for artists from or based in the Liverpool City Region.
The 2010 prize was won by David Jacques with the People’s Choice going to James Quin.
The 2009 prize was won by AL and AL with the People’s Choice going to Elizabeth Willow.
The 2008 prize was won by Imogen Stidworthy with the People’s Choice going to the Singh Twins.
About Metal at Edge Hill Station
Metal was founded by Jude Kelly OBE in 2002 and provides innovative, multi-disciplinary residency space for artists from the UK and overseas in Liverpool and Southend on Sea.
Edge Hill Station is the world’s oldest standing passenger railway station, still in use, and it possesses a proud history of innovation, aspiration and technology. Metal recently completed a major renovation of the Engine House, Boiler Room and Accumulator Tower at Edge Hill Station, after successfully raising capital funding from Kensington Regeneration, Merseytravel, Northern Rail, Railway Heritage Trust and Network Rail.
The new cultural and creative hub launched in October 2009 with the exhibition ‘XXX: Get Off at Edge Hill’ curated by the 2009 Liverpool Art Prize winners AL and AL.
Sponsors
The Prize has continually attracted sponsors from the local business community. This year’s sponsors include:
ABW Architects, Duncan Sheard Glass, The Gallery Liverpool, Arthur Diamond Design, McCoy Wynne Photography.
We are always interested to find more local businesses to help support and grow the prize. Please contact for further details.
Links
www.liverpoolartprize.com has full details about the artists and exhibition.
See also http://www.metalculture.com
and http://liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/
Please contact Jenny Porter at Metal or Ian and Minako at artinliverpool.com for further details.