The UK’s most important open exhibition for drawing, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, revealed the 2020 awards during an online ceremony on Wednesday January 13th 2021.
From 4,274 entries submitted from around the world, 71 drawings by artists, architects and designers were selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020 exhibition. Four prizes totalling £17,000, and three Special Commendations, were awarded by the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020 selection panel, Ian McKeever RA, artist, Sophia Yadong Hao, Principal Curator of Cooper Gallery, and Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern.
First Prize Winner
For the first time in the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize’s history, the First Prize of £8,000 went to a performative drawing: M. Lohrum’s You are It. Between drawing, installation and performance, this collaborative piece challenges the individual notion of authorship by emphasising collectivity and collaboration. Participants were invited to follow these rules: ‘Walk along the paper. Draw circles with your arm. Stop below the lights. Resume your march when other participant touches your shoulder’ for the performance documented in film in the exhibition. You Are It has also been adapted to accommodate safe social distancing for participants at Cooper Gallery at the University of Dundee and Trinity Buoy Wharf in London.
Second Prize Winner
The Second Prize, worth £5,000, was awarded to Nancy Haslam-Chance for her series of Caring Drawings.
Individually entitled Pendant Alarm, Tea, and Teeth, these pencil drawings document the artist’s role as a carer and support worker. Focusing on the relationships she has formed with her clients, Nancy Haslam-Chance represents the daily details and practicalities of a job she describes as “rewarding but also hard and lonely”. Drawn from memory while the artist travelled between shifts, the prize-winning drawings expressively capture moments of intimacy, tenderness, and companionship.
Student Award Winner
Ayeshah Zolghadr received the Student Award of £2,000, for Circling the Square I. This drawing traces repetitive walks made by the artist’s father from 7 February until 21 May 2020, walking around the square outside of his home multiple times a day and following varying paths. Through the practice of walking, Ayeshah’s father seeks control over his medical anxiety and ongoing stroke recovery. Initially recorded through the running app Strava, the line drawings represent an abstracted visual database and transcribes 116 meditative walks in total within this digital line drawing,
The Working Drawing Award Winner
The Working Drawing Award was selected by Sir Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum, London, Piers Gough CBE RA, Architect, and Sophie McKinlay, Director of Programme at V&A Dundee. Worth £2,000, the Working Drawing Award went to Ben Johnson’s meticulously detailed Scrovegni Chapel Worksheet, a preparatory drawing for a painting. This drawing represents Ben Johnson’s reflections on the Scrovegni Chapel, renowned for Giotto’s frescoes of the story of Christ’s life, which dominates the experience of the architectural space of this perfect but humble architecture.
The selectors also awarded three Special Commendations to:
- Frank Leuwer, for his three drawings Untitled (Attic), Untitled (Room), and Untitled (Room), 2020, all Sellotape on paper.
- James Robert Morrison, for his three drawings in the series There is Never More Than a Fag Paper Between Them - Phil & Jacob, Leo & Brian, Andrew & Ben, 2020, all made with pencil on fag (cigarette) papers.
- Isabel Rock, for her drawing, Grief 1 - Leap from The Island, 2019, acrylic ink on paper.
