Frankfurt-born, Malaysian-Chinese artist Lawrence Lek has been announced as the winner of this year’s Converse x Dazed Emerging Artists Award.
The recipient of £5000 in prize money, Lek’s work will be exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens galleries alongside the other four finalists in a show curated by Susanna Davies-Crook.
This year’s other finalists were Jonathan Trayte, Rachel Pimm, Patrick Cole and the artist duo Tamsin Snow and Sarah Tynan. Each has been awarded £1000 to create site-specific work for the show.
Now in its fifth year, the award is open to unrepresented artists of all disciplines not currently in education. Artists are selected through an open-submission call hosted online by Dazed and Confused.
The 2015 judges were: Steven Claydon, Francesca Gavin, Tim Marlow, Sarah McCrory, José Parlá and Javier Peres.
Lek, who is based in London, is known for his interactive virtual environments; his work has been hosted by organisations such as the V&A, SPACE, Barbican and the Delfina Foundation.
For the Emerging Artists Show, Lek presents a virtual simulation of the Royal Academy, based on surveyors’ drawings as well as found text from Russian Tatler (translated into Mandarin for a Chinese audience, subtitled in English). The work offers a potential future for the building, repurposed by high-end estate agents.
Converse x Dazed Emerging Artists Award continues until 17 May at the Royal Academy, London.
www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/the-converse-dazed-emerging-artists
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Shortlist announced for fifth Converse x Dazed Emerging Artists Award
