The winner of the Jonathan Harvey Studio Award – a new graduate award set up by Acme Studios in partnership with the Tomart Foundation – is the artist Ruby Wroe.
The graduate in BA Photography from Camberwell College of Art will receive a 12 month rent-free studio, bursary and mentor/artist visits.
Explaining how the award will impact on her practice, Wroe said: “It will enable me to have the time and space to focus on developing my artistic practice. The studio will mean I can continue to be in dialogue with other graduates about my research and ideas.”
Wroe was selected by a panel that included artist Clare Price, who won the Acme Jessica Wilkes Award in 2013.
She commented: “[Wroe’s] intentions with the work are both critically and socially engaged, with a sense that intriguing connections would occur as a result of this award, both with other artists and with her environment. We are excited to see what she does with this opportunity.”
The new award is named after the co-founder and former chief executive of Acme, who retired at the beginning of this year. Aimed at graduates, it forms part of Acme’s wider Residency & Awards Programme.
This programme includes the Goldsmiths MFA Studio Award – a partnership award funded by Jane Hamlyn, Acme and ISA Charity through the Artisa Foundation – which for 2016/17 has been awarded to Ruth Waters.
The recent graduate, who makes video installations, will receive a rent-free shared studio, a bursary of £6,000 plus mentoring and studio visits.
Waters said: “I feel incredibly fortunate to have received this award. Leaving a degree programme can be very difficult and I am looking forward to sharing a space with other artists who are also in the same situation so we can continue a dialogue about our practice together.”
Previous winners of the Goldsmiths MFA Studio Award include performance and installation artist Alison Ballance, painting and filmmaker Cynthia Cruz, and Sarah Duffy, who works with performance, writing, video, sound and installation.
Images:
1. Ruby Wroe, film still from Marking, Unmarking, Growing Up and Down (September 2015 – May 2016)
2. Ruth Waters at her degree show, 2016. Photo: Orlando Robinson
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