Flagship galleries such as Aspex Portsmouth, MK Gallery Milton Keynes, Modern Art Oxford and Turner Contemporary in Margate aren’t where you’d usually expect to find the work of recent graduates. But over the last few months, all four of these Arts Council England NPOs (National Portfolio Organisations) have been providing opportunities for graduates from local art colleges to show their work.
With support from tutors and course leaders, curators and education specialists, 31 artists were selected for inclusion in the galleries’ Platform exhibitions. Of these, a final eight have been shortlisted for the Platform Graduate Award, a £2,500 bursary and professional development programme. The award is judged by a selection panel including artist Lindsay Seers and representatives from the four galleries.
The shortlisted artists are: George Bills and Joella Wheatley, Arts University College Bournemouth (Aspex); Marion Piper, Buckinghamshire New University and Karolina Lebek, University of Bedfordshire (MK Gallery); Cara George and Kamila Janska, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford (Modern Art Oxford); and Dominic Maffia, University for the Creative Arts and Naomi Eaton-Baudains, Canterbury Christ Church University (Turner Contemporary).
Devised through the CVAN South East network, the Platform project has brought together the professional expertise of the higher education and public gallery sectors to support the development of young artists. On 22 November at Modern Art Oxford, Jennifer Brown, director of The China Shop gallery Oxford, and Lucy Phillips, arts coordinator for the Oxford Visual Arts Development Agency (OVADA), will lead a panel discussion ‘on the role of the institution in the professional development of young artists’. The winner of the Platform bursary will be announced at the same event.
In research published by a-n, curator Reyahn King commented: “Regional galleries working more with visual artists will provide funders, local authorities, galleries and artists with ways to build a sense of place, open doors to technological and innovative ideas, and ensure art reaches wider audiences…. To achieve stronger relationships will ultimately mean more investment in artists by publicly-funded institutions. At a time of constraint, this expenditure of time and money requires leadership from gallery directors to make the relevance of artists to their organisational purposes clearer, and to make their organisations more visibly part of a cultural and creative ecosystem.”
The Platform project would seem to respond to encouragement from Arts Council England in 2011 to all galleries awarded NPO funding to ‘do more’ to support the professional development of artists. Annual grants from ACE for these galleries were £225,770 (Aspex), £372,963 (MK Gallery), £871,209 (Modern Art Oxford) and £463,173 (Turner Contemporary). Interestingly, while these NPOs are now becoming involved in supporting young artists, the ACE grant to ArtSway – renowned for its innovative approach to artists’ professional development, providing platforms for artists not only regionally but at the Venice Biennale – was cut entirely, forcing it to close.
For more information and to book a ticket for the panel discussion on 22 November, click here.
More on www.a-n.co.uk
