The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2022 exhibition of shortlisted drawings was launched at Trinity Buoy Wharf on Wednesday 28 September at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London. From over 3,200 submissions by 1,673 artists located in 45 countries,134 works by 112 drawing practitioners were shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2022. 

The recipients of the four awards, worth £17,000 in total, were announced at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize Exhibition Launch on 28 September 2022:

First Prize, £8,000
Elisa Alaluusua, Unconceivable Line, single-channel video drawing, 2022 (still, image above)

Second Prize, £5,000
Aleksandra Czuja, Of The Series “Le Temps”, diptych, fineliner on paper, 2022 (first image below)

Student Prize, £2,000
Kasia Depta-Garapich, Family Album, paint markers on giclée prints, 2021 (second image below)

Working Drawing Award, £2,000
Gemma Thompson, Untitled (Graphic Score for Quartet), graphite on paper, 2022 (see Working Drawing Award information below)

The exhibition of shortlisted works is open to the public, and free to see, at Trinity Buoy Wharf from 29 September to 16 October 2022. The show will then tour to venues across the UK. A fully illustrated publication and public engagement programme will accompany the exhibition and tour.

 

The Selection Panel, Lucy Byatt, Director of Hospitalfield; Danie Mellor, Artist; and Isabel Seligman, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawing at the British Museum shortlisted 113 drawings by 94 artists architects, designers, and makers, including 11 students.

“Selecting the work for this show is something quite different to anything I have done before” says Lucy Byatt, Director of Hospitalfield. “We are presented with so many entries and with no information about the artists. This open approach to the selection is unique in this world where selection is so often tethered to curatorial intention. We are invited to respond to the single drawing and the way in which it is produced.”

“The works entered by artists for this year’s Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize made for exhilarating viewing” says Danie Mellor, Artist. “The range of drawings exploring both familiar and innovative approaches to image-making presented a welcome challenge in the process of judging. It is abundantly evident that drawing continues to be an exciting and vital medium in contemporary artistic practice.”

“It was a real privilege and pleasure to see the incredible diversity and quality of drawings submitted – from the painstaking and minutely-observed to the throwaway, exuberant and extravagant and I never expected the process to be laced with so much joy and surprise” notes Isabel Seligman, Monument Trust Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawing in the Department of Prints and Drawings, the British Museum.

The Working Drawing Award is a special category within the exhibition which celebrates the role of drawing within architecture, design and making processes. From almost 400 entries by 135 candidates, 21 working drawings by 19 practitioners were selected for the Working Drawing Award by: Peter Clegg, Architect, Senior Partner, Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios; Niall Hobhouse, Collector, Writer & Trustee, Drawing Matter; Tania Kovats, Professor of Drawing & Making, University of Dundee; and Daniel McAuliffe, Education Director (Hubs), The Prince’s Foundation.

The Working Drawing Award, worth £2,000, was award to Gemma Thompson for her graphite drawing, Untitled (Graphic Score for Quartet), 2022 (below left).

         

The Working Drawing Selection Panel also awarded two Special Commendations to:

Lothar Götz, Xanadu, 2022, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 25 x 52cm (below)
George Gibbs, Shed for Carolyn - Offset Section & North Elevation (1:10 and 1:20), 2022, pencil, ink and Conté Paris on architectural tracing paper, 42 x 42cm (above right)