Catlin Art Prize 2015 Goes To RCA Graduate Zhu Tian

Catlin Art Prize 2015

The Catlin Art Prize has announced the winner of the 2015 competition. Zhu Tian, a Royal College of Art MA graduate has taken the top prize this year, at a gala reception in Shoreditch. This coveted award of £5,000 in prize money for a new body of work, was presented for a series of installations that continue her interest in disrupting the everyday. 

The independent panel of judges headed by curator and author of The Catlin Guide Justin Hammond, included Aaron Cezar of Delfina Foundation, Charlotte Schepke of London art space Large Glass, and George Vasey curator of the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art – commended the rest of the finalists for their commitment and the high quality of the work made for the competition.

On their selection of Zhu Tian as the overall winner, the judges commented: “We all agreed that Tian’s presentation demonstrated particular poise and focus. She has made an impressive and coherent body of work, and organized and lit the space so as to create a compelling and unsettling journey for the viewer.” 

Zhu Tian’s sequence of installations, divided into two separate rooms and an adjacent corridor partitioned by a steel roller extend the themes of power, interpersonal relationships and unease embedded in much of her previous work.

The Chinese-born artist, 32, graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2014 with a degree in Sculpture. She said:

“I’m thrilled to be the winner of the Catlin Art Prize 2015. It has been an exciting and challenging opportunity to develop my work with incredible support. I’d like to thank Justin Hammond and the whole Art Catlin team as well as my fellow finalists. Winning the prize will give me a chance to secure my studio and continue working on my next exhibition.”

Visitors to the Catlin Art Prize exhibition selected their favourite artist as part of the Visitor Vote. Over 2,000 votes were cast via ballot boxes in the gallery. Paul Schneider, 28, a Royal Academy of Arts postgraduate, was named the winner of the Visitor Vote in an extremely close-run contest and takes away the £2,000 prize.

The exhibition, held in a renovated Londonnewcastle Project Space building, remains open to the public until 6pm on Saturday May 30th.  The Catlin Art Prize, curated by Justin Hammond, provides a platform for the most promising art graduates in the UK. Participating artists are selected from The Catlin Guide 2015, a nationwide survey of recent art school graduates, now widely recognised as the essential reference for collectors of emerging artists.

This year’s finalists were: Jon Baker (Chelsea College of Arts), Felicity Hammond (Royal College of Art), Oliver Hickmet (City & Guilds of London Art School), Nicholas William Johnson(Royal College of Art), Paul Schneider (Royal Academy of Arts), Lexi Strauss (Royal College of Art), Dominic Watson (The Glasgow School of Art) and Zhu Tian (Royal College of Art).

The Catlin Art Prize. Now in its ninth year, the Catlin Art Prize is an annual event showcasing the most promising UK art school graduates one year on from their degree exhibitions. The Prize is unique in providing the artists with the time and opportunity to develop their practice, encouraging them to demonstrate their progress by producing a new body of work for exhibition. The selected artists are taken from The Catlin Guide and are considered to be producing work of an outstanding quality that demonstrates their capacity to make a significant mark in the art world during the next decade

The Catlin Guide is an introduction to the 40 most promising new graduate artists in the UK, recommended by a wide survey of curators, art writers, collectors, gallerists and course tutors. Each individual profile features a Q&A interview about future exhibitions, projects and aspirations for 2015.

 Photo: P C Robinson © Artlyst 2015

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