4 April 2012

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011

Have you been to any of the annual exhibitions that come under the umbrella of 'Jerwood, Visual Arts'?
Sue has recently visited the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011 exhibition at the newly opened, Coventry Lanchester Gallery and would like to share her thoughts.

'This wonderful space is showing the contemporary drawings of 60 artists, selected from over 3,500 entries.  The Jerwood Drawing Prize is the UK's largest and longest running open prize for drawing and never fails to promote the ongoing, creative interpretation of the word 'drawing'.

The work varies in scale and content and as always does not disappoint in terms of quality, imaginative interpretation and media used.  Every kind of method is in evidence from painstaking Photorealism, gestural mark making to drawing by machine.   Styles also vary from classical portraiture, geometric abstraction, detailed diagrams and even include writing.  The creative use of media is also inspiring, ranging from hand made books, collage, prints, film and embroidery.

Such a wealth of both minimal and complex drawings really did excite me.  Exquisite pencil drawn tree studies, complex cut-out grid patterns, optical illusion drawing of staples in paper, gestural abstract prints to a beautiful piece called 'Withdrawn' where the threads have been removed from a found garment and only holes remain - leaving a hint of what was.

The exhibition finished in Coventry at the end of March but the next venue is the Burton Museum and Art Gallery, Bideford, Devon.'
Visit the website http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/ for more information including an online catalogue.

4 comments:

  1. The online catalogue is well worth a visit. Some superb drawings.

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    1. I notice in the online catalogue that Roanna Wells is the creator of the piece Sue really liked, called 'Withdrawn'. Roanna did an Embroidery degree three years ago at MMU, where her final exhibition showed some huge pieces of paper stitched with lines of black vertical straight stitch. A wonderfully simple interpretation of the landscape.

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    2. A fine selection of drawings . I too like Roanna Wells piece and also Richard Mcvetis whos work is so very pleasing to the eye in its simplicity.
      The tree drawings are wonderful.

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    3. Thankyou for your link to the Jarwood catalogue.Ive really enjoyed looking at the drawings and will try and get to the next showing.

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