Residencies
Jane Phillips Award 2013: Laura ReevesLocation: Elysium Studios
01 October - 31 December 2013
To mentor, nurture and support the professional artistic growth of young, emerging artists across the Visual and Applied Arts
www.janephillipsaward.co.uk | mail@janephillipsaward.co.uk
2013 Residency located at Elysium Artspace Studios, Mansel Street Swansea | 1 October 2013 - 31 March 2014
The Jane Phillips Award is delighted to announce the recipient of the 2013 award, as Cardiff based artist Laura Reeves. This will consist of £1000, a nine month residency, with support and mentoring from professionals across the arts.
The Jane Phillips Award was launched at Mission Gallery in August 2011, as a memorial to Jane Phillips (1957 – 2011) Mission Gallery’s first director. The award is a legacy to Jane’s passion for mentoring and nurturing talent, consistently supporting young, emerging artists across the Visual and Applied Arts.
Throughout the selection process, each candidate for the Award presented outstanding potential. It was very rewarding for Mission Gallery to be involved in interviewing such an exceptional group of young and emerging artists, each highly deserving support in the early stages of their career. The selection panel this year was joined by guest selector Claire Curneen.
Artist Sean Edwards, who nominated Laura, writes that “Laura Reeves is one of the most exciting young practitioners that I have found working in Wales today. She has a commitment not only to her own practice but also to the visual arts in Wales, actively contributing and engaging to debate. The quality, consistency and thoroughness of all that Laura does is without question”.
Laura Reeves grew up in the South West and moved to Cardiff to study Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design. After graduating in 2012 she won the Eisteddfod Young Artist Scholarship. An avid collector of amateur found photographs, her practice is rooted in the archiving and selection of the images she gathers. In particular, there is a focus on the 35mm slide but also a large collection of a range of formats of found images.
Using these photographic archives, Laura begins a highly research based investigation into her source material. Using the information she finds, she pieces together lost histories and stories. These investigations often lead to research trips influenced by the location of the original images.
The Jane Phillips Award was launched at Mission Gallery in 2011 by Nathalie Camus, Senior Applied Arts Officer, The Arts Council of Wales. It was set up as a memorial to Jane Phillips (1957 - 2011) Mission Gallery's first Director. The Jane Phillips Award is administered by Mission Gallery.
The Award is intended as a memorial to Jane and a legacy to her passion for mentoring and nurturing talent, consistently supporting young, emerging artists across the Visual and Applied Arts in Walesand beyond. It seeks to award and support one artist every two years.
The Jane Phillips Award seeks nominations for ambitious artists across the Visual and Applied Arts at the early stages of their career, who are producing work of high quality, have a clear vision and a strong commitment to career development. Candidates must be nominated for the Award by a tutor, employer or other professional and fulfill the criteria that includes; living in Wales, aged between 18-30 years and demonstrate an outstanding ability or potential in either the Visual or Applied Arts.
A host of respected mentors and talent-spotters across the Visual and Applied Arts will assist at both the assessment and development stage of each application. Each year of the Award there will be a guest selector; a respected professional working within the arts.
Selection Comittee 2013
Louise Sian Gibbard | Family of Jane Phillips
Dr. Russ Harris | Jane Phillips Award Patron & Representative of the Friends of Mission Gallery
Keith Bayliss | Chairman of the Jane Phillips Award & Member of Mission Gallery Board of Directors
Amanda Roderick | Director of Mission Gallery & Jane Phillips Award Committee Member
Deirdre Finnerty | Artist & Exhibitions Assistant, Mission Gallery
Guest Selector 2013 | Claire Curneen, Ceramicist, ACW Creative Wales Ambassador Award 2012-13
Shortlisted Artists 2013
Laura Reeves (Nominated by Sean Edwards)
Ryan Moule (Nominated by Rut Blees Luxemburg)
Hannah Wells (Nominated by Julia Griffith-Jones)
About Jane Phillips
Jane Phillips was Mission Gallery's Director from 2003-2011. She passed away on 6th February 2011 after a long battle with cancer. Jane dedicated her life and career to Mission Gallery and worked on a voluntary basis for over 20 years as it's Gallery Co-ordinator. After training as a painter at Central School of Art in the late Seventies, Jane returned to Swansea where she worked from her studio in Gloucester Place, opposite Mission Gallery. Jane's most prolific period was during the early eighties, soon after she graduated, when she produced large scale canvases. These colourful, abstract paintings, serve as a fitting tribute to, and celebration of, Jane's creativity and talent.
"Jane's achievements and her success at Mission Gallery were considerable: her dedication and drive merged seamlessly with her informed artistic vision, her enthusiasm was infectious, always coloured by a warm sense of humour and her spirit, which fought for the rights of so many artists, came directly from her belief in art and her love of life".
Jenni Spencer Davies
Curator, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea
