Ten artists and composers have received this year’s Awards for Artists, the UK scheme that hands money to creative people and asks nothing in return. The recipients were announced at an event in central London on Wednesday 4 November.
Now in its 32nd year, the programme backs visual artists and composers at a point in their careers when support can change what happens next. There are no conditions on how the money is spent. Recipients can use it to buy time, rent space or simply ease the pressure of making work with little in the bank. Nominations come from a wide network of peers, and a panel of four new judges makes the final decisions each year. Judges included Joe Hill, the director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Melissa Blanchflower, a senior curator at Turner Contemporary in Margate, and Sheryll Catto, the artistic director of ActionSpace.
Over the years, the awards have totalled £12.79 million, shared among 377 artists across the UK. The organisers say this year’s group reflects the range of art-making in the country today.
The visual arts recipients are Linda Bell, Racheal Crowther, Rory Pilgrim, Georgina Starr and Hayley Tompkins.
Bell makes large-scale, interactive and performative sculpture, using materials such as foil, paper and fabric to explore how they register on the senses. Crowther works in installation, exploring the thin line between care and control and the psychological and social weight carried by buildings, objects and spaces. Pilgrim’s practice encompasses songwriting, composition, film, music video, text, drawing, and live performance. Starr works with sound, moving image, installation and writing. Tompkins combines acrylic painting with found objects, digital film, photography and furniture to build intimate installations.
The composers are Olivia Chaney, Bushra El-Turk, Charlotte Keeffe, Daudi Matsiko and Ayanna Witter-Johnson.
Chaney is a composer, singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and folk musician. El-Turk draws on musical traditions tied to her Lebanese heritage, making narratives that challenge social norms and give space to stories rarely heard. Keeffe is a multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, and freely improvising trumpeter whose work sits at the intersection of composition, improvisation, and sonic experimentation. Matsiko, a British-Ugandan singer-songwriter and guitarist, works in the contemporary folk tradition. Witter-Johnson, a composer, singer and cellist, makes genre-fluid work that links classical composition, jazz improvisation and Afro-diasporic traditions.
Jane Hamlyn, who chaired the visual arts panel, said it was a privilege to renew the commitment to artists each year. “Many artists find their creativity diminished when resources are scarce,” she said, adding that the panel hopes the awards give recipients room to grow.
Kevin Le Gendre, the writer, broadcaster and journalist who chaired the composers’ panel, pointed to the question of who gets to become a composer in the first place. There is often a barrier, he said, and the no-strings approach is meant to help break it down and encourage diversity, originality and risk in composing.