This year’s £15,000 Lynn Painter-Stainers prize has been won by Wladyslaw Mirecki, a watercolourist whose works combine imagery of man-made structures and nature. The self-taught painter also receives an engraved gold medal for his watercolour Viaduct and tank traps.
Mirecki was chosen by a panel consisting of Angela Flowers, founder, Flowers Gallery; Ken Howard OBE RA NEAC, artist; Andrew Lambirth, art critic; Ruth Stage, artist; and Andrew Wilton, visiting research fellow at Tate Britain.
Lambirth said: “Wladyslaw Mirecki is a master of watercolour who derives much of the vitality of his imagery from a sure and subtle juxtaposition of man-made architecture and natural growth.
“Here the Chappel Viaduct is brilliantly foregrounded by rusting railings, a gnarled tree, saplings and a tank trap being reclaimed by nature. This is a major work by an artist at the height of his powers.”
The newly created Brian Botting Prize of £5,000 goes to Ema Pina for her figurative painting Bóbó and the Young Artist Award of £2,500 goes to Louis Appleby for Planet of the Apps. Peter Archer, Jeanette Barnes, Daisy Cook, Patrick Cullen and Danny Markey each receive a £1,500 runner-up prize.
The open competition, created in 2005 by the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and the Lynn Foundation, promotes the skill of draughtsmanship, rewarding ‘the very best in creative representational painting’.
The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2015 exhibition is currently on at the Mall Galleries, London, until 21 February 2015. www.lynnpainterstainersprize.org.uk
