ALICE CARR

Alice Carr is a British Australian artist based between Edinburgh and Oxford. She has just graduated from the Royal Drawing School’s Online Drawing Development Year. Using thick layers, expressive mark making and various mediums she allows stories to emerge from within images, sometimes unsettling, sometimes humorous. Her work sits between observation and imagination, with elements of traditional and personal folklores creeping in and juxtaposed with mundane realities.

Instagram: @a.e.carr

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"The haunting scenes and energy in Alice's paintings are very powerful, like a macabre folk tale, the story sticks with you." - Leo Bruno Todd

ALINE GAIAD

Aline was raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a family of artists and collectors. She is known for her abstract, room portrait paintings and bold gestural marks that are always present in her work. Objects from her life, interior design and antiques are constant themes in her paintings. Aline works mainly with acrylics, favouring the immediacy of this medium for the process of building layers, and also turns to oil sticks and pastels.

Instagram: @a.gaiad

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"There’s something almost recognisable in Aline’s interior portraits, yet they excite a curiosity in me. Whose scarf is that? What picture is on the wall? Who has just left the room?" - Grace McCloud

CHELSEA YOUNG

Chelsea’s creative practice is driven by experience - a type of solace that she seeks. 

After returning from travels through Kenya and India and existing in rural Artist In Residence programmes within these two spaces; her art practice has become an unpacking of memory and place, through colour, form and movement. 

Her latest works are memories from North West India and the complexities, similar to internal landscapes or a history of marks.

Instagram: @chelseaanneyoung

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I love the wildness of Chelsea’s expressive mark-making and the way she uses colour to immerse you in an abstract sense of place. Looking at her work, I can almost smell the spices of India and feel the heat." - Grace McCloud

DANIEL DZONU CLARKE

Daniel Dzonu Clarke is a mixed media artist based in London of British-Ghanaian Descent. Growing up in London his passion for skateboarding led to a fascination with obscure architectural forms, and the way urban environments could be reinterpreted as spaces for play. He furthered his practice at Camberwell College of Arts, studying Illustration. Over the last decade, his work has been awarded by galleries and museums such as the V&A and the Barbican, and featured internationally in The New Yorker, Wallpaper, Penguin publications and more.

Instagram: @danieldclarke

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I love the variety of Daniel’s work, and his use of colour. His work is warm, evocative, and has a timeless quality to it that’s incredibly appealing." - Otegha Uwagba

HARRY WADE

Harry Wade is an abstract painter working out of Cornwall, UK. His paintings are expressive but also structural in nature. He tends not to extract or unpack specific meanings from them. Not because they’re lacking meaning but because the meanings are fluid. They acknowledge the changeability of meaning and this is foundational to what they are.

Instagram: @hittheroadharry

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Harry has an extraordinary understanding of composition and his paintings sit in my mind alongside those of some of my favourite artists: Cy Twombly, Sean Scully and, perhaps most strikingly, William Scott. But there’s an added moodiness to his works that really appeals. Colour, when it comes, is pure and punchy – and I like that." - Grace McCloud

"I first came across Harry’s peaceful paintings via Instagram last year and was thrilled to see that he'd entered his work into the open call. I love abstracts for their ability to pull a colour scheme in a room together and make everything in the space feel elevated." - Eleanor Cording-Booth

IVAN KASHDAN

Ivan Kashdan is an artist living and working in London. He studied film at Bournemouth Film School before completing his MA in Fine Art Media from Slade School of Fine Art.

His work explores how the rules of one medium can transpose into another, using the principles of stop-animation and film through painting. 

He often works in large-scale boundless surfaces like murals, walls or stage flats allowing his paintings to be a continuous act of exploration.

Instagram: @ivankashdan

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"I love the scale and theatricality of Ivan’s work. His use of colour and form is subtle yet impactful." - Georgia Spray

JONATHAN HOOPER

Jonathan Hooper is a painter based in Leeds. He grew up in the Chilterns and did his Art Foundation at Bucks College of Higher Education. He gained a BA in Fine Art (Printmaking) from Falmouth School of Art and Design, and an MA in the Social History of Art from the University of Leeds. 
His subject is the built landscape of the city of Leeds, and in particular the residential architecture of the suburbs to its north-west: Hyde Park, Burley, Kirkstall, Headingley and Meanwood.

Instagram: @hooperpainter

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Jonathan's work draws you in. There is something so familiar about the vernacular architecture he chooses to paint, and yet something otherworldly makes you feel unsettled." - Leo Bruno Todd

KARA MARSHALL

Kara Marshall, also known as Tuftluck Studio, is an English mixed media artist. After having a newborn at the beginning of lockdown, and not having her past modelling income, she came across tufting and started creating textile pieces in collaboration with musicians and MTV.

Kara takes inspiration from 70s pop culture and Western movies, which she beautifully translates in watercolour paintings. Similarly to her tufting practice, she fell in love with the textures she could create with the medium.

Instagram: @tuftluckstudio

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Kara’s playful work has a 70s feel, which I love. The themes in her paintings make me feel nostalgic about destinations I’ve never been to and a time I’ve never lived in. I’m rarely drawn to figurative or playful art as I can quickly tire of seeing it but something about Kara’s balloon-sleeved cowboys and neutral tones feels timeless." - Eleanor Cording-Booth

"There is a real joy in her work. Just looking at these paintings lightens my mood." - Leo Bruno Todd

LENÉ EHLERS

Lené Ehlers is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. She studied graphic design and completed a post-graduate degree in illustration. After falling in love with floristry she opened her own floral design studio while painting on the side. After exhibiting her work in a Cape Town gallery in 2020 she decided to focus on her art practice full time. She’s exhibited in multiple shows and works on bespoke commissions in a range of mediums.

Instagram: @leneehlers

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"These works remind me of frescos or murals in old Indian palaces. The detailing and use of colour is exquisite" - Georgia Spray

LUCY WHITFORD

Lucy Whitford is a London-based artist. Her practice is multidisciplinary, with a focus on ceramics and sculptural installation. Lucy’s work has been featured in numerous shows and publications since gaining her Masters in Fine Art with distinction from Chelsea College of Art and Design. Her practice is rooted in a personal exploration of human connection and the study of clay. Lucy draws upon memories, objects and rituals that relate to the body, the home and the natural world to tell stories of fragility, strength and tenderness.

Instagram: @lucywhitford.studio

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"These gorgeous sculptural vases are so unusual and very distinctive. I especially love the leaf-like shapes that adorn the top - I’d happily have these in my home." - Otegha Uwagba

MARY WEST

Mary West is an abstract artist living in West London. She studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, where she developed her practice building richly oil layered canvases veering between abstraction and figuration. Mary draws on lived experiences of nature, exploring light, texture, space and atmosphere. She lives by the river, which provides a constant source of inspiration in her paintings. In her work, the paint takes on a life of its own through chance accidents and gestural mark making.

Instagram: @marywestpaintings

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Mary’s expressive mark-making is so beautiful and has so much energy and movement to it. You get lost in her paintings and which are both peaceful and turbulent, reflecting whatever mood you’re in." - Georgia Spray

NATHAN ISAAC

Nathan Isaac is an artist and designer based in Newport, Rhode Island. His storied, mid-century imbued collage presents stirring imagery of the invisible and imagined with a connective energy. Each piece is expressively constructed from vintage and sustainably sourced materials, pigment-based inks, and natural adhesive.
Experienced by many viewers as emotive and musical in tone and 20th-century in voice, the works are often based in memory and identity journeys, liminal and universal in theme.

Instagram: @nathanisaac.art

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Nathan’s paper collages look their most impactful when they’re displayed as a group as they complement one another so well. The Modernist forms conjure thoughts of iconic interiors from the past and I love how the artist works on book covers. The peek of colour along the edge frames each piece before it's actually framed." - Eleanor Cording-Booth

PETER EVANS

WHAT THE JUDGES SAY:

"Peter’s work reminds me of some of the Expressionist greats, and I particularly love his use of texture. He also manages to convey a sense of story beautifully." - Otegha Uwagba