The winner of the 2016 edition of the Griffin Art Prize has been announced as the London-based Serbian artist Ana Milenkovic. She will receive a three-month studio residency at Griffin Gallery starting next year, plus a supply of artist materials from Winsor & Newton, Liquitex and Conté à Paris.
The Wimbledon College of Arts MFA graduate works with assemblage, collage and photography, often creating surreal and disturbing images in the process. Last year she won the Clifford Chance Sculpture Award.
Milenkovic said: “It is a huge surprise and boost of confidence for me to keep working on my practice and develop as an artist. I’m really looking forward to starting the residency.”
The other artists shortlisted for the prize were: Pallas Citroen, Cynthia Cruz, Olivia Kemp, Uesung Lee and Emma Papworth.
Griffin Gallery director, Becca Pelly-Fry, said: “The entries for this year’s Griffin Art Prize were of a particularly high standard, resulting in a highly varied shortlist encompassing detailed drawings, large scale digital works, sculpture and installation.
“We are really looking at the expanded field of painting here, and the shortlist has a currency to it that reflects contemporary concerns of emerging artists, in the UK and beyond.”
The judges for this year’s edition were: Pelly-Fry; Rebecca Lewin, exhibitions curator at Serpentine Galleries, London; Jenny Lindén Urnes, owner and chair of Lindéngruppen; and artist Vicky Wright.
Now in its fifth year, the Griffin Art Prize is open to artists working in painting or drawing with a BA or MA who have graduated within the last seven years.
Previous winners of the prize include Zsofia Schweger, who was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016 and exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Show 2016.
2012 winner Alzbeta Jaresova was included in the 2012 Catlin Guide for the 40 most promising UK art graduates. She was also included in the 2014 Jerwood Drawing Prize.
Work by the six shortlisted artists is at Griffin Gallery, London until 23 December 2016. www.griffingallery.co.uk
Images:
1. Ana Milenkovic, winner of the Griffin Art Prize 2016
2. Installation view, Griffin Art Prize
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