The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has awarded £600,000 to new recipients of Awards for Artists 2022. Ten visual artists and composers receive £60,000 each with no strings attached from the largest awards for artists in the UK.
Awards for Artists supports visual artists and composers at a pivotal moment in their careers. Each award offers recipients £60,000 over three years – with no obligations or conditions as to how the money is used. Not only the largest award in the UK, this ‘no strings attached’ approach sets the awards apart from other schemes by giving artists the time and freedom to develop their creative ideas and to further their personal and professional growth.
The Awards reflect the Foundation’s strong belief in the value of artists to society, and the vital contribution that they make to our culture. This year’s recipients span a broad spectrum of visual arts practice and composition, including Mariam Rezaei’s pioneering turntablism; Sarathy Korwar’s heady mix of South Asian jazz and Indian classical music; Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye’s exploration of the intersections of writing, scenography and performance; and Vanley Burke’s intimate photographs documenting the lives of Black British people.
Jane Hamlyn, Chair, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Chair of the Visual Arts Panel commented:
“Artists are facing enormous challenges right now. These awards give artists much-needed time, resources and headspace. There are no strings attached, but I’m sure they will give back in many different ways.”
Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive of Paul Hamlyn Foundation said:
“We believe that a healthy civic society is one where artists thrive – we want to support artists and composers to have the freedom to develop creatively, and to grow personally and professionally.”
Since the Awards began in 1994, PHF has recognised a total of 337 artists across a range of artforms with funding totalling £9.94 million. Previous recipients include visual artists Yinka Shonibare (1998), Jeremy Deller (2001), Phyllida Barlow (2007), Ed Atkins (2012), Michael Dean (2014), Sonia Boyce (2016), Charlotte Prodger (2017), Ingrid Pollard (2019) and Hetain Patel (2021). Composers include Sally Beamish (1994), Janek Schaefer (2008), Tansy Davies (2009), Eliza Carthy (2012), Shabaka Hutchings (2014), Daniel Kidane (2016), Serafina Steer (2017) and Abel Selaocoe (2021).
Each year, a panel of four new judges selects the recipients on the basis of talent, promise and need, as well as achievement. The awards might be made at any point in an artist’s career with no age restrictions unlike many other awards schemes; Gustav Metzger was 80 when he received the award in 2006. In selecting recipients, the panel always considers an artist’s potential for future development.
2022 Visual Arts recipients:
Vanley Burke is a photographer who uses his work and imagery as a counterpoint to any perception of negative or stereotypical imagery of Black people found in mainstream media. His photographs capture experiences of his community’s arrival in Britain, representing members of the Black community back to themselves in an intimate portrayal.
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye is a writer, performer and maker of artwork, integrating the visual, written and spoken word through print, text, image, and live performance. Eno-Amooquaye creates the environments in which she performs her writing, developing complementary stage sets and bespoke garments, allowing her work to explore the intersections of writing, scenography and performance.
Trevor Mathison is an artist, musician, composer, sound designer and recordist. The defining feature of his work is the integration of environmental sound and archival material into his sonic practice, with the fragments combining to create fractured and haunting aural landscapes. Mathison is a founding member of a number of experimental groups, collaboratively producing and performing sonic and visual events using installation and ambient scores.
Libita Sibungu is an interdisciplinary artist working with writing, performance, photography, print and sound to build environments that weave decolonial narratives into immersive installations and poetic arrangements. Through storytelling Sibungu connects her familial history with political movements, and wider collective memories and cosmologies to amplify displaced, buried and marginalised voices.
Alberta Whittle choreographs interactive installations, using film, sculpture, and performance that are often made in response to current events with themes including xenophobia, the catastrophe of the weather and the global pandemic. She is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-Blackness.
2022 Composer recipients:
Laura Bowler is a composer, vocalist and Artistic Director specialising in music-theatre, multi-disciplinary work and opera. She has been commissioned across the globe by ensembles and orchestras, producing award winning compositions and multimedia music theatre. As a vocal soloist she has performed and premiered works internationally, and is the vocalist in contemporary music ensemble, Ensemble Lydenskab.
Brìghde Chaimbeul is a Gaelic musician established as one of the leading experimental purveyors of Celtic music. Chaimbeul plays the Scottish smallpipes and has devised a unique way of arranging and composing for pipes that emphasises the rich textural drones of the instrument; the constancy of sound that creates a trance-like quality in the music.
Sarathy Korwar is a musician specialising in North Indian classical music and jazz. He has established himself as one of the most original and compelling voices in the UK jazz scene, using his experiences as an Indian in Britain alongside his training in classical Indian percussion. Korwar is the founder of the UPAJ Collective – a group of South Asian jazz and Indian classical musicians.
Mariam Rezaei is an award-winning composer and performer. Her work is at the forefront of cutting-edge research in ‘Turntablism’, composed from her perspective as a northern, mixed heritage, working class, queer, female turntablist. Her innovative music has recently been described as “genuinely ground-breaking” (LCMF 2022, London Jazz News) and “high-velocity sonic surrealism” (LCMF 2022, 4* The Guardian).
Orphy Robinson is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist who has been a major force in contemporary jazz, improvised and classical music for over 40 years. Robinson’s compositions use influences from across historic timelines, combining melodies and rhythms that underpin their stories with spoken word narrative and improvised textures of sound to create a unique soundtrack for each performance.