Meet the Winners: Royal Society of Sculptors 2021 Gilbert Bayes Award

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The Gilbert Bayes Award 2021 will showcase the winners in this annual prize run by the South Kensington-based society. The prize is open to early-career artists and highlights a small group of outstandingly talented sculptors. Featuring: Amba Sayal-Bennett, Anna Perach, Camilla Hanney, David Cooper, Johanna Bolton, Kate McDonnell, Marco Bizzarri, Olga Golos, Shinuk Suh, Sophia Ruppert.

Amba Sayal-Bennett

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Amba Sayal-Bennett, LOH, 2021

Anna Pearch

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Anna Pearch, Mother of Egg, 2019

Anna Perach (1985, USSR) is a Ukrainian born Israeli artist living and working in London, UK. She holds an MFA in fine art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). She has exhibited internationally at galleries including: White Cube gallery (London, UK), Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), ADA gallery (Rome, Italy) and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (Herzliya, Israel). In 2021 Anna took part in Arco Madrid 2021 with The Ryder gallery and received the Ingram prize award. in 2020 she received a studio award with Sarabande, The Lee Alexander McQueen foundation as well as  the Gilbert Bayes award. In the same year, Anna was awarded a grant for the production of new work from Procreate Project via the Arts Council England. Recent publications include Calvert Journal and Artfotum. 

Artworks Description:
Mother of Egg is a fictional character that embodies the idea of the archaic mother. A mythical entity that has birthed the world but holds the ability to abolish it. Her objective is to safeguard a fragile egg shape from which she carries in her front lower body. 

 

Camilla Hanney

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Camilla Hanney, Mother, Madonna, Monster, 2019

Working through ceramics, sculpture and installation Camilla’s practice explores themes of time, sexuality, cultural identity and the corporeal, often referencing the body in both humorous and challenging ways. By subverting traditional, genteel crafts she attempts to transgress and contemplateconventional modes of femininity, deconstructing archaic identities and rebuilding new figures from detritus of the past. By materialising the familiar in an unfamiliar context her work stimulates our ability to rethink our relationship towards objects, threatening the natural order and toying with the tensions thatlie between beauty and repulsion, curiosity and discomfort, desire and disgust.

Camilla Hanney (b. 1992) is an Irish artist living and working in London. She is a Graduate of Goldsmiths University Masters of Fine Art programme (2017-2019) and also Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Visual Arts Practice 2010-2015). Since moving to London, her work hasbeen exhibited by a diverse range of galleries including the South London Gallery in conjunction with Bloomberg New Contemporaries, No. 20 Arts, Muse Gallery, Dora House and The Rosenfeld Gallery. Camilla was the 2019/20 recipient of the Sarabande foundation studio bursary. She was granted the UK Young artist of the year runner up award at its inaugural award ceremony which was held at the Saatchi. She received the ‘Committee's Choice’ prize at ‘Exceptional’ an exhibition of recent graduate work at Collyer Bristow Gallery and was recipient of the zealous: Sculpture stories prize. She was granted the 2020 Irish Visual Arts Bursary Award and is recipient of the upcoming 2022 Newbury Trust Craft Excellence Award in conjunction with Cockpit Arts. Her work has been featured in articles by Crafts Magazine, Elephant Magazine, wallpapermag, Showstudio, Mission Mag and Harpers Bazaar.

 

Johanna Bolton

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Johanna Bolton, Cornered at the Edges, Installation

Johanna Bolton is a visual artist working across sculpture, installation, photography and performance. Since graduating from Chelsea College in 2014, she has had a number of residencies and exhibitions in the UK and internationally. Her first solo show was in 2018 at Borough Road Gallery, London South Bank University.

Last year, Johanna received the 2021 Gilbert Bayes Award for emerging artists from the Royal Society of Sculptors, and became the recipient of a nine-month residency at metal fabricator Benson Sedgwick in 2022.

Previous projects include a residency at Kew Gardens Herbarium, a commission for the Bomberg Archive at London South Bank University and exhibitions at Gerlesborgs Konsthall in Sweden and Edicola Spoleto / MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, Italy.

Johanna’s practice is about building up an archive of human presence and movement left behind in material form. Previous projects have made studies of the kinks and knots in discarded elastic bands, patterns deformed in scrunched up paper and, most recently, the fabric folds of trouser knees.

 

Kate McDonnell

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Kate McDonnell, One Kilometre Drawing, 2020

McDonnell works in sculpture and installation. Her practice is firmly rooted in process art and influenced by postminimalist artists such as Richard Serra and Eva Hesse, and also Louise Bourgeois. In 2021 Kate McDonnell won the Gilbert Bayes Award and was named an ArtConnect Artist to Watch. She was shortlisted for the New Emergence Art Prize, 2021 and won the Drawing Special Mention prize from the Refresh Art Award, 2021. Residencies include the Porhtleven Pirze and the WECA Creating Together residency. In 2022 she was long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize. She achieved an MFA (distinction) from Bath Spa University in 2018 and previously studied at De Montfort University and Central St Martins. Before becoming and artist she had a career as an art editor and designer for clients including Future Publishing. She lives and works in the city of Bath.

 

Marco Bizzarri

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Marco Bizzarri, Unearthed

Marco Bizzarri (b. 1988, Chile) is a visual artist graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católicade Chile. His work has been exhibited in Chile, as well as abroad. Recent solo exhibitions include Unearthed at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop (London,2020) Incuria which took place in Galeria Animal (Chile, 2019) and Plan de cierre (Chile 2017), which gathered the work developed at Centro ARC, a new space for artistic residencies that he founded together with Rosa Velasco in the Humboldt archipelago.. Furthermore, he has participated in a series of collective exhibitions like Habitantes at the Centro cultural Matta (Argentina,2019), Cohabitar, Cede Galería, (Perú, 2016), Outsider at the Gare of Strasbourg (France, 2014) and The Young Collectors Exhibition at the Leila Heller Gallery (USA, 2013).On 2020 he won the Gilbert Bayes Award of the Royal Society of Sculptors (London) and also the firstplace in the XIII Videoart Award of Ayuntamiento de Astillero (Spain).Recently he have receivedThe de LaszloFoundation Award 2021 in London.Today he is studyingat Turps Bananapainting studio programme in London.

 

Olga Golos

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Olga Golos, from the Series Missing

Olga Golos (b. 1987) born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia and since 2010 lives and works in Munich, Germany. 

 

Sophia Ruppert

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Sophia Ruppert, Domiciliary Apparatus, 2020

Sophia Ruppert earned an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a BFA in Sculpture from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums including the Alexandria Museum of Art in Alexandria, Louisiana, The Virago in Contemporary Art and Adornment in Seattle, Washington, Art St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Rockford Art Museum in Rockford Illinois.

Her notable awards include the Dan and Barbara Creative Achievement Award, the Vreeland Award, and the Othmer Fellowship. In 2020, she received the Mayors Art Award from the Kimmel Foundation for the arts in Lincoln, Nebraska and the Gilbert Bayes Award from the Royal Society of Sculptors in London.

Her international publications include "Art Hole" Issue 9 UK, "Bluebee" Volume 6 UK, "The Working Artist I" UK, and "Contrastes de Forma" Brazil. Ruppert currently lives and works in Lincoln, Nebraska.

 

Shinuk Suh

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Shinuk Suh, Untitled, 2019

Shinuk Suh (b. 1988) Seoul, South Korea, lives and works in London.

 

David Cooper

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David Cooper, Fool (detail), 2021