It’s been a brilliant year for New Blood artists. From exhibitions, prizes, to residencies in the UK and abroad,
As part of the evolution of artists’ practices we’ve seen their latest projects and the connections they’ve forged across the art world, with curators, poets, publishers, curators, galleries and other artists. See here a series of highlights from 2022 in celebration of what these artists have achieved.
A highlight for 2022 graduate Eleni Maragaki was being awarded a public commission for Stavros Niarchos Park in Athens, a light installation she’s been working to materialise over the past months. She was also awarded the residency by the Muse Gallery, entailing a 6 month residency with a free studio, exhibitions and seminars. See Eleni at work in the studio here. Her Christmas card design was selected by Tate and University of the Arts London for their shops – and not just for the festive season. (The design for the card is based on a print she had at the gallery, which has sold out.) She was also in the Rising Stars exhibition at the Royal Over-Seas League and The Graduate Art Show at the Woollff Gallery.
Magdalena Gluszak-Holeksa was invited by curator Kris Day to participate in the five month Letchworth Residency 21/22, at Broadway Gallery, which resulted in a solo exhibition at the gallery. The paintings from the exhibition, ‘A Mountain, Too, Has Its Thoughts’, are now available for purchase via New Blood Art.
In March she became a Digswell Arts Fellow and moved to her first studio space at the Forge in Welwyn North (Hertfordshire). The Digswell Arts Trust is a charity that for over sixty years has focused on artists in the early phase of their careers, providing studios for approximately forty emerging artists. She was also selected for the Newplatform.art Professional Development Program, and received a Professional Development grant from A-N Bursary program.
Jan Valik has showed from Toronto (his first solo exhibition in North America, at L.L. Contemporary gallery) to Vienna (featuring in a group exhibition at Amart gallery). He was also shortlisted for the BEEP painting prize and the Now Introducing Art Prize at Studio West in London – and also appeared in the group exhibition Royal Watercolour Society Open at Bankside Gallery.
Lorena Levi was the winner of the Jackson’s Painting Prize (see the interview with the artist), selected as a Bloomberg New Contemporary (touring from Ferens Art Gallery in Hull to the South London Gallery), showed with the Royal British Artists at Mall Galleries, was part of the Descover artist residency in Hydra, and had a solo show at Alchemy Experiment Glasgow. She’s found the time to move studio from Angel to Tower Bridge. See Jackson’s Painting prize interviewing Lorena.
New artist Adam Boyd was also selected as a Bloomberg New Contemporary straight out of graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art.
Toni Harrower has her painting ‘561573’ included in the Society of Scottish Artists (SSA) 130 Years Annual Exhibition. The exhibition is on until the 10th of January 2023.
Helen Latham’s favourite moment of her year was being selected by Grayson Perry for the Royal Academy Summer exhibition, with her painting ‘Sinking into the Burning Sand’.
Samantha Wilson recently moved to London for her research degree at the Royal College of Art funded by her QEST scholarship that we announced earlier this year. She’ll be showing alongside other artists from the RCA with their works in progress exhibition at the Cook Latham gallery in Battersea early next year. Though she’s in London her Lisbon studio is still open at LX Factory for visits.
David OM on the other hand has moved away from London, to County Durham where he’s become a homeowner for the first time. He renovated the house himself, including a north facing room to serve as his studio. Up north he also exhibited in Newcastle. Down south his work was in the RA Summer Exhibition – and sold on the first evening of the private opening viewing.
Emiko Aida has had a work showing in Lucky Cat, Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant in Mayfair. She’s also currently in a group show for printmaking at Watts Contemporary Gallery in Guildford, until January 14th. From the 12th of December she’s in a group show at Liberation Art Gallery in Brighton. She showed at the Annual London Print Fair with the Royal Society of Painters and Printmakers at Somerset House in May. One of her paintings is long-listed for the Chaiya Art Awards.
Various good news for Isaac Aldridge this year, following graduating with distinction in his masters in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art and securing a studio in the city. He’s been awarded The Artist Support Pledge Surface Award, and been long-listed for the Cosimo Emerging Art Prize 2022. He’s featured in 8 group shows including the Winter show at D31 gallery Doncaster, the Art on a Postcard Show (winter edition) at The Bomb Factory Foundation in London and GOOD LIFE at the Botanical Gardens Glasgow.
Eleanor Dunning is currently in a group show by Bocabar, Paintworks in Bristol for their Winter Collection until January 15th.
Ruth Richmond’s year began beginning with a drawing of her selected for The Society of Graphic Art Open at The Mall Galleries, London – showing there for the second year running. She was accepted for the two week Mawddach Residency in Wales May this year. The artist was invited to exhibit with 5 different group shows around the UK, one of which was the culmination of a two year residency (extended due to the pandemic) called Deben Soundings: “walking, exploring and watching the change over the seasons of the river Deben in Suffolk, walking from the source in Debenham to Felixstowe.” It’s showing at ARTSPACE Gallery in Woodbridge, and will travel to other venues, sponsored by Middlesex University and University College London. Other shows were the outdoor biennial sculpture show ArtGarden in Cambridge, at The Whitaker Museum in Manchester and ‘About the Size of it’ at Eastcliff House Gallery in Essex.
2022 Slade graduate Selena Scott had a painting on display as part of an exhibition at Cambridge Artworks for Black History Month. That month artist also had work on display at Genesis Cinema and 1B Window Gallery as part of an exhibition put on by Dark Yellow Dot, featuring “work celebrating black excellence in creativity.”
Sean Madden’s work was published in Out of the Box,
a kaleidoscopic compendium of collages, assemblages and miniature art pieces showcasing the work of over 100 contemporary creatives from 21 different countries. The brainchild of designer, artist and curator Tom Buchanan, the 336-page book is built on a decade of research, curating and documenting exhibitions and events that focus on box art, a term that he loosely defines as ‘artworks that have evolved, been created within, or have even escaped from a box.’
Sarah Lea curator from London’s Royal Academy of Arts wrote for the book, which contains over 500 works, calling it a “cabinet of curiosities that embodies the lost art of collecting in an increasingly digital world.”
It’s been a fabulous year for Nicola Wiltshire. She was selected for the Little Van Gogh residency in the New Forest to develop her drawing practice. Paul Smith put on a solo show (still running) of her drawings on the designer’s fabrics at his Borough Yards store in London. On working with the gallery manager Nicola elaborates on the process:
We had a few discussions over the phone, he showed Paul my work and we realised I could paint on their fabric. I’ve been working with the fabric team, going through swatches and created a collection of 47 paintings, mostly on Paul Smith fabric. It’s extra exciting for me, as this is the first time I’ve exhibited my drawings, and it’s also the first time I’ve exhibited plants alongside landscapes.
Nan Collantine was the recipient of the Castlefield Gallery Professional Development Award at the Manchester Open and a finalist in the Beep Painting Biennial.
Theodosia Marchant participated in two international shows: one in Germany, and one in Beirut, Lebanon.
Clementine Eastwood was part of a group exhibition called ‘The Spirit of Xmas’ in Notting Hill’s HM Electric gallery – the show is up until the end of January. The artist did a live tufting piece for the show back in December.
Wendy Hodge’s painting ‘Untitled 1’ was selected for the Oxmarket Open exhibition, at Oxmarket Contemporary in Chichester in August. She was also part of a small group of students who exhibited at the gallery in an exhibition called ‘New Graduates: University of Chichester’, in June and July.
Charlie Yates had what the artist calls his first proper solo show, called ‘BREATHE’, in Aberfeldy in an old watermill. The Times reviewed it with 4 stars. He’s also been involved in two charities with Edinburgh and Glasgow Children’s Hospital and The Maggie’s Centre Art Extravaganza Auction in Aberdeen.
Katherine Benson also took part in Art on a Postcard’s winter auction, where all of her postcards sold with everything raised going towards the Hepatitis C trust. She also participated in the Aberdeen Art Fair with BirdsNest Gallery.
Alice Miller had her first solo presentation at The Fores Project in Kentish Town, London and she’ll be doing a six week residency there in January. She was also a finalist in the RBA Rising Stars Award and the Waverton Art Prize. Browse the artist’s photorealism paintings, which involves the camera’s presence in her portraiture.
Lewis Deeney’s work, ‘The Sun of Intelligence in the World of Ideas’, has been longlisted for the Chaiya Art and Spirituality Award on this year’s theme of ‘awe and wonder’. In In this interview with Al-Tiba contemporary art magazine about his new Emergence Collection, he says how:
I had a realisation early on in art school that if I try to be anyone else other than me I’ll always be second best to someone… This is not to say I am not deeply inspired by many artists, including, but by no means limited to, Vassily Kandinsky, Richard Pousette-Dart, Hilma Af Klint, Jackson Pollock & Leonardo Da Vinci. And also contemporaries such as Ryan Hewett, Olafur Ellison, Conrad Shawcross, Bridget Riley, Jack Coulter & Phillip Taffe… I try to embody the inspiration received by them rather than the artist themselves.
Following his residency over the past year at Platform Arts Belfast, Lewis is now moving back to Scotland into a new studio space: ready to make new work in the new year.
Orlanda Broom has been involved in a fascinating project as part of a group show called ‘Consciousness’ at Sage Culture in Los Angeles – the artist’s first time showing in the city – in collaboration with scientist and artist Andrew Park. He’s spent more than two decades researching the evolutionary question about the brightest colours in nature – the metallic sheen of a hummingbird or butterfly’s wings, for example – and has come up with a technology that recreates them. Known as structural colour, they’re 100% reflective, visible even in the deep ocean. Orlanda was given yellow to respond to. You can read more about the exhibition, now open, in the catalogue.
Orlanda was invited by the charity Hospital Rooms to donate a painting for their fundraiser auction, which was partnered with and held an exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, London. It’s a project considering physical and mental health and environments conducive to healing. She’s let us know more work is on the way to her gallery page, so keep an eye out for botanic and abstract paintings in her signature high-gloss resin finish.
/ MIASMA / was the first solo exhibition of artist Hannah Kate Absalom, at Wasps’ studios Glasgow this August. The exhibition was a dystopian collection of oil paintings, drawings and woodcuts imagining an apocalyptic future, which blended the Biblical with science fiction. She also began her MAFA at Central Saint Martins in September. The masters will be a two year course, so she’s moved her studio from Glasgow to London. In her first term she’s begun her largest painting yet and will be experimenting with video work and animation.
Phoebe Hardwick has started renting a studio in Holyhead Studios in Coventry (the same building where The Specials began). She was selected for and is currently showing at the Leamington Spa Open 2022.
Toni Codgell‘s painting ‘In This Stillness’ was purchased by Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong, and entered the art collection on view in their Hong Kong offices. She also participated in the Battersea Affordable Art Fair: “It’s been a good year, very busy and I feel as if a few creative leaps have been made, going deeper into the work, which is a lovely feeling.” She’ll be back at the Affordable Art Fair next spring with Turner Art Perspective, as well as starting to work with a gallery in Europe.
Lily Senner had her first solo show, at the Gallagher & Turner gallery in Newcastle over the summer.
Tom Hemming also had his first solo show, at the Lewisham Arthouse, and showed as part of the Brockley Max arts festival and Lewisham Borough of Culture celebrations this summer.
Sax Impey, Llinos Owen and Julie-Anne Simpson went on display at Saatchi Gallery. Llinos Owen and Julie-Anne Simpson as part of a group show SYNTHESIS, and Sax Impey was showing there during the autumn.
Wayne Sleeth was selected by a jury for a solo show at L’Orangerie in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris this summer, showing 25 of his works under the title ‘MonetMonetMonet’. Focusing on the waterlily paintings, it was the artist’s “second major opportunity born of a long admiration and reinterpretation of Monet’s oeuvre.”
This year Tyler Watson has collaborated with Paul Smith, Liberty London, Edward Bulmer Paint and House of Vans. Read more about the artist’s painted pop worlds.
Morag Caister has had a brilliant year. She was the winner of the Sky Portrait Artist of the Year, and as a result, had her painting of Lenny Henry unveiled at the National Theatre. She’s also been shortlisted for The Football Art Prize with her portrait ‘Match Of The Day’, and her piece ‘Self-Portrait With Bad Posture’ has been selected for the permanent collection of the new Soho House Brighton. She was also a winner of the Partnership Editions Open Call, selected by journalist and author Yomi Adegoke.
Rosemary Burn‘s works were included in: Wells Art Contemporary Awards showing in the incredible Wells Cathedral itself; Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition, Mall Galleries; Paris International Art Fair; Artexpo New York; and Green and Stone virtual exhibition. She was accepted as a member of Artcan for future exhibitions in 2023. Her works were notably privately collected.
Sophie Fraser was involved with the Young Penwith Artists: Sophie Fraser & Alice Ellis-Bray, on show as SUNDANCE at Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall (July). This was a brand new opportunity for emerging talent based in the Penwith area of Cornwall, and this show marked the debut Young Penwith Artists exhibition, which will continue as an annual event. She also featured in TROZE PRESENTS at Troze Contemporary Art in Newlyn, Cornwall – as well as the Associate Members Summer and Winter Exhibitions, Penwith Galley, St Ives Cornwall (in July and November, also showing there January and April).
Sammi Mak has had work on show at: Highlights of 2022 Graduates, Liliya Art Gallery, London; Roll Call 1st Edition, Odds and Ends Gallery, Hong Kong; Featured Artist at True Global, London; curated by Inhouse Art exhibition at True House, London; Unveil at Row Club by Swanfall Art, London; Affordable Art Fair; This Art Exhibition, Espacio Gallery, London. Read more on the artist’s year.
A reminder that Glib Franko continues to live and practice in Ukraine. All proceeds from his work go directly to the artist. He has been invited to a group show, Yudian Shenzhen, in China.
