Winter Pride UK Art Awards 2014

The awards have attracted widespread interest from artists across the UK, with entries being submitted from London to Edinburgh.

Stephen Fry, who has been nominated as the Winter Pride UK LGBT Luminary of the Year, said: “Artistic and cultural events of this kind are so important for the well being of the LGBT community”.

21 Finalists have been selected by a judging panel, including sculptress to the Queen, Frances Segelman, who said: “The Winter Pride UK Art Awards represent an international opportunity for emerging artists to showcase their artworks”. The resulting creations are an astonishing spectrum of artistic practice and will be previewed at CHART gallery in Chelsea from 3-5 February 2014, followed by a display at Tobacco Dock in East London on the 8th of February, when the winner and runners up will be announced.”

Taking centre stage at Winter Pride, hermaphrodite artist XXXora, debuts a giant 16-foot painting, The Apple Tree, an alternative story of Adam and Eve and part of her Captured Hermaphrodite series.

This theme is explored further in Vardan Aslanyan’s thought provoking oil painting, Adam & Adam, and complimented by Kristina Butigans’ striking painting, Locus amoenus, as well as Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf’s, Three Graces, which is painted on chiffon.

The animal kingdom is represented by Shauna Richardson’s Crochetdermy@Bear, a life-size brown bear, and the startled Persian cats in Jesse Olwen’s, Punk Not Dead – whilst a Garden of Eden ocean is brought to life in The Coral Goddess, a coral reef restoration sculpture by Celia Gregory.

Laura Jean Healey is the only video installation artist amongst the 21 Finalists, and her ethereal film The Siren, is a spectral study of a female nude floating through water.

The weird and the wonderful feature in this exhibition; including Trygve Skogrand’s Tree of Knowledge, a multi-limbed man; Mercedes Ferrari’s, The floozy, which is made entirely of lampshades; a melting staircase by Holly Mackenzie, and a miniature staircase and diver within Kate Wragg’s pint sized, The Decision.

Throughout all the entries the inventive spirit of the participating artists has dominated – Welsh artist Ruth McLees makes use of chromatography to explore pigments and their hidden ‘fingerprints’ of colour, whilst Jae Yong Choi’s Black Cloud, is made entirely of installation cable.

Humour and laughter is also evident – there is the flying crockery of Roxana Hall’s The Tablecloth Trick; the exuberance captured in Bronac McNeill’s photograph of Rose Garden from the Drama Queens, and a Naughty Girl oil painting by artist Carl Hoare.

The last three Finalists for the Winter Pride UK Art Awards make use of light and dark. Electrifying and original, the imagery is powerful – Alice Stallard’s electric pink light 24/7/365 Neon, contrasts sharply with the 1940’s searchlights of Rob Ellis’ spray-stencilled Can’t Bomb Glamour, whilst the long shadows of Vanja Karas’ photograph Posthumous, Pina Bausch, lends an air of serenity and contemplation.

What: Winter Pride UK  ART Awards Finalists

Where: CHART gallery, 62 Old Church Street, London SW3 6DP

When: Show runs from Monday, February 3 – Wednesday, February 5, 12-6pm

Winter Pride UK Awards & Festival is on Saturday, February 8 from 8pm-4am at Tobacco Dock, Wapping Lane London E1W 2SF

For information about the Art Awards, EMAIL:

For limited award ceremony tickets, CLICK HERE: