JUDGING PANEL & CRITERIA
A two step process was followed where a panel of judges, composed of professional artists & curators, independently shortlisted five standout works from each category, then came together to collectively discuss & choose six winners against the criteria below:
Artistic technique
Handling of medium/format
Design and creativity
Overall impression/impact in response to the theme
Zofia Wyszomirska-Noga (WIILMA Polish Arts Ambassador, Art Tutor and Volunteer)
I am an artist and art conservator working in London. I believe that involvement with art, whether as an observer, connoisseur or creator, can be a form of therapy. As an artist I focus on the subjects of childhood, motherhood and womanhood because I understand them as very universal matters. I very often portray children with their toy-attribute, held as a symbol of their individual story. I paint mothers and children hugging; breast feeding women in the shape of Madonna Lactans (nursing Madonna) – a symbol of eternal, unconditional love. I am interested in memories and their influence on us as individuals.
My recent project was Art and Memory (https://artandmemory.uk/), my artist 's response to the transcription of stories of Polish second world war deportees and refugees recorded by and archived by Pilsudski Institute of London. The history of displacement, and indeed the contemporary displacement of big groups of refugees that we witness today, is very often the background or starting point for many of my creative ventures. As an art conservator I think that preserving our heritage is especially important because knowing our past enables us to understand our present.
I am honoured to have the opportunity to work with Wiilma again and be able to see all beautiful art competition entries. You have made my world a much better place, allowing me to peep into your imagination through your artworks!
Marina Renee-Cemmick
Marina grew up in Dorset, moving to Glasgow to study Painting at Glasgow school of Art (2018). During this time she was awarded an exchange program to Kyoto Seika, Japan. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with her first solo show ‘Underlying Structures’ at The New Glasgow Society (2018). In 2018 she was awarded the Aon Community Arts Award and shortlisted for Most Promising Artist, later receiving the RSA John Kinross award to travel to Florence.
She has exhibited work with The Royal Society of Portrait painters at Mall Galleries, as well as being highly commended for Tony Stones Award from The Society of Portrait Sculptors. She received a place on the Drawing Year at The Royal Drawing School, London (2019) before gaining Arts Council Funding DYCP to research ways of combining theatre and drawing. In 2021 was invited to a residency in Poland with the Grotowski Institute where she became The Associate Artist of Flabbergast Theatre Company.
Guillame Vandame
Guillaume Vandame is a French-American artist and writer based in London.
As an interdisciplinary artist, Vandame is interested in expanding ideas of language and meaning through a conceptual, queer, and socially engaged aesthetic, especially the subjects of representation, intimacy, and post-gay identity. Vandame has shown his art internationally in London, Luxembourg, and Copenhagen, among other cities. His art has been written about in The Art Newspaper, Elephant, Creative Boom, It's Nice That, among other publications, and he recently wrote an essay for Hyperallergic on the importance of the Gay Pride Flag today.
In 2019, Vandame presented a participatory artwork Notice Me (LGBTQIA+ Walk) commissioned by Sculpture in the City for Nocturnal Creatures in partnership with the Whitechapel Gallery, London and he received an a-n bursary to support research in queer theory, printmaking, and scent. In the midst of the pandemic, he started a campaign across the U.K. for the public to submit their discarded NHS Rainbow artwork. Between 2020 and 2021, he took part in an artist residency at Union Chapel, London and he is currently included in the 10th edition of Sculpture in the City, London between 2021 and 2022.
With Josh Wright, he has shown at fig-2 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Chi-Wen Gallery, Taiwan; Gazelli Art House, London; MK Gallery, Milton Keynes; Photofusion, London; and recently at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. They were selected as Artists-in-Residence for Open House with Kettle’s Yard between 2019 and 2020.
Ben Oakley
Ben Oakley is a prolific conceptual artist whose work doesn’t stick to one medium or subject matter, “why listen to other people’s preconceptions about how to pigeonhole yourself, the whole purpose of art and creativity is to be free and express oneself.”
With this being Oakley’s life statement he is able to relate his creativity and artistic vision to a wide selection of unique works and mediums. Oakley has exhibited in the UK, Europe and sold alongside many of today’s modern masters.
Using Aerosol, Acrylic, Emulsion and inventive mixed media, or ‘Artcycling’Oakley’s work becomes more and more interesting as he layers and combines new techniques with often antique materials delivering them into the 21st Century with Impact and dynamism.
Running alongside his practice Oakley has been curating things at the ingeniously named Ben Oakley Gallery for the last 10 years, promoting the Emerging to the over Qualified from all over the globe.
Eduardo da Costa
Eduardo da Costa is an emerging curator, working independently, drawing on a long career involved in the fine arts. With interests in contemporary culture; both Postcolonial and de Colonial thought and activism. Additionally, modernism; African and European ontologies act as strategic spines for my curatorial practice.
Da Costa studies Art History and Curatorial Studies at Birkbeck College University of London and previously studied English Literature. His first major project was in collaboration with Outside the Zone Gallery entitled, 'The End is Nigh'.
Eduardo is a founding co-chair of the Arts and Culture Network for the Young Fabians.
Jack Trodd
Jack Trodd is a London-based Curator, agent and emergent advisor.
Formerly a corporate marketing and sales specialist, during lock-down Jack redirected his experience to his passion for fine art and passionate people. Over the past 12 months, he has curated 6 solo shows and advises a number of private collectors on emerging artists.
Jack volunteers and supports a number of not-for-profit organisations in a curatorial capacity. Having led judging and curation for the WIILMA's Lockdown Community Art's competition, whilst currently curating Global Radio's Make Some Noise Foundation's fundraiser exhibition, 2022, including works by Patrick Hughes, Willard Wigan, and Stuart Semple.
In 2021 Jack launched agency-cum-nomad gallery Brushes with Greatness in order to offer artists an impassioned, flexible level of support in growing practices. Through exhibitions, private and corporate opportunities, and expertise in marketing, PR & sales. Promote, progressing, and empowering artists, giving them more time to focus on what's important: their creative expression. Whilst ensuring collectors, businesses and enthusiasts alike have cause to brush with greatness.