Ahead of the John Moores Painting Prize call for entries opening on 14 September 2017, the Walker Art Gallery has announced the names of the jury members who will judge the competition in 2018, its 60th year.
The jury comprises esteemed international artists, including a 2017 Turner Prize nominee and a former John Moores Painting Prize winner, and one of the most influential curators of contemporary art of recent years. They will consider thousands of entries before selecting the final shortlist and the overall winner of the £25,000 prize.
Established in 1957, the internationally-renowned prize, organised in partnership with the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust, has championed contemporary British painting for 60 years; more than two decades longer than any other art prize of its scale.
The shortlisted works will be displayed in the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition, which is held at the Walker Art Gallery biennially. The exhibition runs from 14 July to 18 November 2018.
The jury members for the John Moores Painting Prize 2018 are:
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, an artist whose practice intertwines performance, sculpture, painting, installation and video. Her work incorporates elements of folk plays, street spectacles, popular culture and Surrealist cinema. Her performances and videos often employ troupes of performers – friends and relatives of the artist. She has performed and exhibited internationally, and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2012. Recent solo projects include The Green Room & Science Lab and The Panther Ejaculates, Art Basel Parcours, Basel; Uptight upright, upside down, CCA Glasgow; JABBA, I’M BACK! and Cocaine and Caviar, Bergen Assembly, Norway and Dogsy Ma Bone, Liverpool Biennial, UK.
- Lubaina Himid MBE, an artist and professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. In her artistic, academic and curatorial work, Himid brings forth and celebrates the lives and histories of people of the Black diaspora. Himid has exhibited work in a number of major institutions such as Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; South London Gallery; Spike Island, Bristol; Modern Art Oxford and Nottingham Contemporary. A selection of her work, including part of the celebrated Naming the Money, opens at the Walker Art Gallery on 7 October 2017. Her work is held in several public collections, including National Museums Liverpool, Tate and the V&A. She is a nominee for the 2017 Turner Prize.
- Jenni Lomax, an independent curator, was Director of Camden Arts Centre, London, from 1990 to September 2017, where she established an influential programme of international exhibitions, artist residencies and education projects. Before this, she developed and led the Community Education and Public Programmes at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Lomax has been involved in an advisory capacity with many arts, education and charitable organisations and has been a member of selection and judging panels for numerous awards and exhibitions including the Freelands Award, the Turner Prize, Arts Foundation Award, Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Nissan Art Prize.
- Bruce McLean, a sculptor who has investigated the possibilities of sculpture over the last 50 years using a variety of mediums, including photography, impersonation, video and drawing. McLean has exhibited in many major shows including When Attitudes become Form, A New Spirit in Painting, Zeitgeist and Documenta 6, 7 and 8. He continues to question the nature of sculpture and will showcase a new body of ceramic work in the exhibition Garden Ware, opening at the V&A in September 2017. McLean’s painting Oriental Garden, Kyoto won the John Moores Painting Prize in 1985.
- Liu Xiaodong is a graduate of and currently professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His first solo exhibition, held in 1990, marked the beginning of a new generation of art in China, for which he is considered to be a key figure. During the same period, Xiaodong was heavily influential in China’s emerging independent film scene. From 2004, he has presented his large-scale, outdoor painting projects widely at an international level.
The entries will be judged anonymously under the founding principle: to support artists and to bring to Liverpool the best contemporary painting from across the UK. The jury will select a final shortlist of five paintings, from which the £25,000 first prize-winning work will be chosen and four additional prizes of £2,500 will be awarded.
In celebration of the Prize’s 60th anniversary year, an additional award will be offered to the first prizewinner – a three month fellowship at Liverpool John Moores University together with an in-focus solo display at the Walker Art Gallery in 2019.
Visitors to the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition will also be invited to vote for their favourite painting to win the popular Visitors’ Choice Award. The winning artist will receive £2,018.
To enter the competition, artists should visit liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/johnmoores, where the full terms and conditions of entry are listed. The deadline to enter online is 13 November 2017 at 12 noon. Artists must submit images of their painting by 15 November 2017 at 12 noon.
Past prizewinners include David Hockney (1967), Mary Martin (1969), Lisa Milroy (1989), Peter Doig (1993), Keith Coventry (2010) and Rose Wylie (2014). Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is Patron of the Prize. The winner of the prestigious first prize in 2016 was Michael Simpson with his painting, Squint (19).
The John Moores Painting Prize is organised in partnership with the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust and is supported by its exhibition partner Weightmans. The exhibition is showing as part of Liverpool Biennial 2018, the largest festival of contemporary art in the UK taking place across the city’s public spaces, galleries and museums from 14 July to 28 October.
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