We’re delighted to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Bursary Award winners. Bursaries are aimed at those taking their first steps into professional arts practice, returning to creative practice after a career break or change, or currently taking their art in a new direction.
The award aims to nurture and encourage new talent to take the next steps in their career by helping to fund their participation in this prestigious event.
This year’s winners are:
Erica Luke, Venue PS3, Plymouth
During Open Studios, Erica will be showing visitors her sketchbooks, work in progress and ongoing experiments.
She begins by drawing in her sketchbook and then creates paintings and gel-plate prints. Erica is inspired by nature and a love of gardening and green spaces. Her art usually includes a manmade element, such as a bridge or a house. She’s interested in our place in nature and doesn’t want to make a distinction between people and the natural environment.
Erica’s work is colourful and expressive. She loves colourful paints and likes to exaggerate the colours in her paintings. Through each work, she is trying to convey how she was feeling when she created it.
Frances Parkinson, Venue M7, Crediton
Frances Parkinson creates mixed media works ranging from intimate smaller pieces to large-scale projects, combining intuitive print processes with painting, drawing, and textured surfaces.
A late diagnosis of autism and ADHD was a turning point that brought clarity and focus to Frances’s practice. She learnt to identify how neurodiversity brings barriers to making, so that she could overcome those barriers. Now, her work explores how making can support thinking and wellbeing.
Devon and Cornwall provide inspiration for Frances’s work, which incorporates elements of the landscapes, layered with her own experiences.
Sarah Burt, Venue S14, Totnes
Sarah Burt is a printmaker who draws inspiration from the architecture and landscape of her local area, its history and natural beauty. She’s interested in our relationship with our built and natural environments, and the deep connections that we have to certain places. Her prints often feature the places that people may not initially see the beauty in; often invaded by self-seeding plants, yet full of abstract lines and interesting textures. Her prints are detailed and textured – she aims to encourage the viewer to explore the image and build a picture of the history of the place and its story.
Sarah uses drypoint print techniques on old Tetrapak cartons donated by friends and family. She likes being able to use a throw-away item to create something new and at the same time, reduce landfill waste.
Ollie Finn, Venue T30 SKWONK, Ashburton
Ollie Finn is a craft maker and carpenter working under the name SKWONK. He makes everyday functional objects and small pieces of furniture from recycled skateboards, reclaimed plywood and thoughtfully sourced local timber. An important part of his practice is being mindful of his footprint when bringing new things into the world.
Ollie uses Yosegi – a traditional Japanese marquetry technique where intricate blocks of contrasting woods are glued, repeated, expanded and refined until a geometric patchwork forms. He combines this with contemporary methods to create his distinctive work.
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Izzy Webber, Venue E5, Exmouth
Izzy’s oil paintings explore portraiture, figurative subjects and interior scenes. She gathers inspiration from observing how natural light can flood into a room or stream across surfaces, or how warm light from a lamp creates shades of pink around it.
Izzy has always loved making art, but only recently decided to make a career of it. She began painting seriously during lockdown and is now working from a studio in her garden.