Win It! 2023 Art Prize Exhibition - a-n The Artists Information Company

Venue: Aire Place Studios
Starts: Friday, September 1, 2023
Ends: Friday, September 29, 2023
Address: Unit 2c, Aire Place Mills Kirkstall Road Leeds LS3 1JL
Location: Yorkshire
Organiser: Aire Place Studios

Aire Place Studios presents Win It! 2023, our annual art prize exhibition. Showing, sharing, and celebrating talent, this exciting visual arts competition offers winning artists valuable prizes to aid their future practice.

Launching on Friday 1st September, Win It! features the works of 39 talented artists. Join us at APS Gallery from 6:30pm – 9:30pm to mark the breadth of creative genius and congratulate the winner of the £300 Win It! award. This year APS has expanded its prize giving to include a solo exhibition at Coles Gallery for the first runner-up.

That’s not all though! Following the big reveal, voting commences for the 2023 People’s Choice Award. We need you to help us decide the deserving winner by telling us your favourite on our website, with the winner of an APS Associate Membership worth £45 and announced at the closing of the show.

Three of the participating artists will be our lucky winners: Angela Mantilla, Anji Timlin, Ashley Ferrari, Caroline Brown, Elizabeth de Broise, Emma Brackenbury, Gareth Bell, Helen Field, Heloise Petit, James Mellor, Jo Cook, J Marc, Julie Lawrence, Karen Maley, Karina Geddes, Kevin Boardman, Lauren Carr, Laurence Pusey, Lina Noueiri, Louise Mortimer (Fierce Fine Art), Lydia Rain, Maggie Thompson, Marie Muravski, Mark Sibbald, Mary Mayne, Mbeke Wase, Michal Raz, Natasha Armstrong, Nelson, Robin Tynan, Roman Vaughan-Williams, Roy Best, Sara Prinsloo, Sofia Lipskerova, Stef Will, Steve Murray, Weronika Magrini, Yangdzom Lama

Viewers can explore our newly purpose-built gallery space and browse over 40 diverse and wonderful artworks, with most works available to purchase.

This competition gives artists across the nation the opportunity to showcase their work in our gallery as well as be in the chance of winning amazing prizes, designed to help support the artist’s practice:

Our Prizes:

Aire Place Studios Prize: £300 cash prize.
First runner-up Prize: A solo exhibition at Cole’s Gallery
The People’s Choice Award (selected by a public vote): APS Associate Membership worth £45/ Wallace Seymour £75 Material Voucher

Our Prize Exhibition judging panel have the tricky task of naming two worthy artists to receive the top prizes. The panel consists of four passionate industry experts: Sarah Francis, Founder and Curator of Aire Place Studios, Joss Cole, Gallery Owner of Coles Gallery and Megan McClean, filmmaker, multidisciplinary and last year’s winner of Win It! 2022.

Together they have toiled to debate the winners; “Although we live in the actual world, as artists we live more in a world of possibilities. We are looking forward to our new exhibition possibilities with a great selection of artworks.” Judge Joss Cole.

To cast a vote in the People’s Choice Award simply head to our website: https://www.aireplacestudios.com/the-peoples-choice-award/ to preview the Artists profiles ahead of the exhibition closing. The artwork shown the most love will win!

Voting opens at 7pm on Friday 1st September and closes at 5pm on Friday 29th September 2023 and the winner of all the cash prizes will be announced publicly during our launch event on Friday 1st September 2023.

Sarah Francis

Artist Curator Sarah Francis is a Leeds based Artist Curator who focuses on bringing under-recognised artists and narratives to the public, using empathy and warmth to build self-confidence in creatives left behind by the mainstream system. Fascinated by complex possibilities lying dormant in ‘familiar’ environments, setting a challenging dialogue between cultural identity and the inner worlds which we as artists manifest within our work. This conceptual framework draws parallels between artists from differing socio-cultural worlds, whose work follows similar lines in metaphysical realms. Francis' interpretation of the curator is that of a caretaker of other worlds, working in collaboration as the tour guide and storyteller, bringing these converging manifestations to our physical spaces. Francis’ artwork centres around her neurodiverse and queer identity, building her own language and worlds to explore and understand ‘how I made me’; a reference to an early body of work that investigated her inner trauma and re-articulation of her current self. Her work has been shortlisted for the Saatchi Gallery’s Art of Giving Prize, selected by Richard Billingham for Curator’s Choice Noise Young Talent 2009, and recognised in Aesthetica’s 100 Best Contemporary Artists in Europe. In addition to her work, Sarah Francis is the Founder and Director of Aire Place Studios, Leeds. @sarahfrancis.art & @aireplacestudios

Aire Place Studios CIC

Aire Place Studios is a creative studio which holds spaces of equality and solidarity. We host comfortable studios spaces, hold safer spaces for workshops and a bold gallery space centred around innovation and inclusivity. Aire Place Studios also features a collective of associated artists who exist to radically uplift under-represented creatives with empathy and warmth to realise the potential of those often overlooked by traditional art institutions. This dynamic collaboration builds trust and collective accountability to serve our communities.