Richard Forster. © Simon Warner
Exhibition Preview - The Northern Art Prize at Leeds Art Gallery until February 1 2009.
Four artists shortlisted for the second Northern Art Prize are exhibiting recent work at Leeds Art Gallery.
The names in the frame for the £16,500 winnings, all of whom currently live and work in the North of England, are Clare Charnley, Richard Forster, Paul Rooney and Imogen Stidworthy. The three runners-up will each receive £1,500.
The exhibition focuses on work the artists have completed in the past two years, and includes film, audio, pencil drawings, sculpture and photography. Some of the work is being shown in the UK for the first time.
Each of the four was nominated by a leading curator in the North of England, and the names were whittled down from a long list of 23 earlier this year.
Clare Charnley. © Simon Warner
Clare Charnley, who is based in Leeds, has produced most of her work outside the UK, exploring issues relating to the English language. The work she’s exhibiting includes a video piece involving personal anecdotes of misunderstandings, and she’ll be making new recordings with gallery visitors discussing misunderstandings of their own.
Richard Forster makes photo-realistic drawings and sculptures based on both his own photographs and images from twentieth century photographic journals, informed both by London and his native Saltburn.
Recurring themes in his work include brutalist high- rise tower blocks, industrial environments, pastoral figures and seascapes.
Paul Rooney’s recent work has focused on the 'voices' of semi-fictional personas, presented as written, sung or spoken monologues.
Showing in this exhibition is ‘La Décision Doypack’, which uses a narrative involving a packaging company manager's trip to Paris in May 1968 when he unwittingly found himself caught up in the student protest, which brought the French government to the point of collapse.
Paul Rooney. © Simon Warner
Imogen Stidworthy is exhibiting a sound installation, ‘I Hate’, which looks at the construction, communication and meaning of language and draws parallels with the built environment.
The sound piece, which is supported by photographs of the demolition and restructuring of buildings, involves a retired professional photographer with a partial inability to produce and understand speech as a result of an accident.
"We're thrilled with the high standard of nominations for 2008, and the increasing momentum of the prize," said Pippa Hale, Director of the Northern Art Prize. "This year’s exhibition includes a wide range of work by some great artists of international repute."
Imogen Stidworthy. © Simon Warner
The judges for the 2008 prize are Iwona Blazwick, Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Louisa Buck, writer and contemporary art critic, artist Georgina Starr and art collector Anita Zabludowicz.
In 2007, the prize was won by multi-disciplinary artists Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie, working as Somewhere, for a series of innovative films.
This year’s winner will be announced at a prize giving event at the gallery on January 25 2009, and the exhibition will continue until February 1.
