2 November 2024 to 1 March 2025
20-21 Visual Arts Centre are delighted to present the 13th Flourish Award for Excellence in Printmaking. Selected from open submission, the exhibition brings together a diverse range of printmakers from across the UK. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of West Yorkshire Print Workshop, this exhibition is touring venues across the north of England and we are thrilled to be hosting Flourish 2024 over the winter season.Over 160 applicants submitted their work this year and shortlisting to 15 from such high-quality submissions was both inspiring and challenging. This year’s judges were: Grant Scanlan – Huddersfield Museums Manager, the artist Tracy Hill, and Martyn Lucas – Lead Officer of Arts at Turnpike.
The competition was open to established, emerging, and student artist/printmakers, and the panel looked for creativity, skill, originality and innovation in traditional handmade print: from relief print and intaglio to screen print, lithography and more.
2024 shortlisted artists are: Margaret Ashman, Arzoo Azad, Leonie Bradley, Jess Bugler, Ian Chamberlain, Hammer Chen, Paul Coldwell, Lorenzo Davitti, Ruth Fettis, Georgia Green, Layla Jabbari, Ian Malhotra, Lindsey Moran, Bronte Teal, and Fouzia Zafar. (Please note due to building work there has been a delay installing Bronte Teal’s work which will be on show from Tuesday 12 November).
Flourish Award 2024 Winner: Ian Chamberlain.
Ian Chamberlain captivated the judges with his mastery of traditional handmade print techniques coupled with originality and innovation.
Ian has a fascination with technology and architectural forms within industry, agriculture, science and the military. His work contrasts the fast pace of technology with the slow pace of the etching process.
I have been developing a current body of work dealing with communication, focusing on the repetitive design and sculptural qualities of mobile phone masts. These mundane structures are transformed into powerful symbols representing the omnipresence of modern communication networks. They become subjects of artistic inquiry, questioning a deeper reflection on the role of technology and the overlooked infrastructure in our contemporary lives.
Image (top left): Network I by Ian Chamberlain
2nd Place 2024 – Hawthorn Printmakers Award: Jess Bugler
Jess Bugler’s exceptional talent and dedication to the craft of printmaking stood out, earning this accolade.
In this work, Jess explores the state of aloneness, using the theme of a wooded enclosure of trees. Both works are created from the same carborundum plates.
In Forest Ghosts, the ghost prints of the plate are used. The 10 prints are hung on top of each other, so the viewer can see through them, and feel the sense of the forest. Printed on waxed Chinese paper they have a lightness and impermanence.
In Forest Books, Jess monoprinted by hand. The double-sided book pages have a solidity and presence to them next to the ethereal quality of the hanging prints.
Image (middle left): Forest Books by Jess Bugler
Recent Graduate Printmaker/Student Award 2024: Hammer Chen
Recognising promising talent in the field of printmaking, the Recent Graduate/Student Award was awarded to Hammer Chen. Chen’s cinematic printmaking combines brilliant technique with an acute artistic eye.
I am a printmaker who merges traditional techniques with digital imagery. My work is informed by memory and travel, arousing nostalgia through the cinematic image. These scenes are open to interpretation and filled with tension or expectation – the anticipation of what is about to happen.
Image (bottom left): Precious Fragments by Hammer Chen
