Visual artists Sarah Maple and Kevin Gaffney are among the five winners of this year’s Sky Academy Arts Scholarships, announced this weekend as part of the South Bank Awards hosted by Melvyn Bragg.
Aimed at helping young artists in the UK and Ireland to develop their creative practice and take their work to the next level, the scholarships offer each of the winners £30,000 towards the development of an artistic project and the cost of living for one year, along with mentoring support.
Sarah Maple will use the award to develop her project I Disagree With What You Say, an exhibition of new paintings, photography and performances based on the concept of freedom of speech. A graduate of Kingston University, Maple’s work uses wit and humour to engage audiences with issues such as gender, religion and politics.
Dublin-based Royal College of Art graduate Kevin Gaffney plans to create and exhibit a new body of work titled Tectonic Plates of Conversion, exploring areas of forgotten industries which remain as spectres on the Irish landscape.
Working in photography and film, Gaffney has recently developed several projects during international residencies in Taiwan and Korea. In July this year he will take part in the Kooshk Artist Residency program in Tehran, Iran.
An extraordinarily rich prize
Announcing the awards, Melvyn Bragg said: “There’s nothing more important in this country at the moment than giving professional mentoring and opportunities to young people. It is one thing to give an enabling sum of money, but to couple that with a systematic and high-quality mentoring system makes it an extraordinarily rich prize.”
Scholarships were also awarded to music producer Adebayo Fakos and writer and performer Jonnie Bayfield, who are both based in London, and to Birmingham-based creative producer Anisa Haghdadi.
This year’s judging panel included: Louise Jeffries (Barbican); Godfrey Worsdale (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art); Kris Nelson (Tiger Dublin Fringe); and Phil Edgar-Jones and (Sky Arts).
