Artist Tina Jenkins has won the 2014 Threadneedle Prize for her work ‘Bed Head’, a mixed media work, currently on display at The Mall Galleries, London. The artist was previously the runner up in the Marmite Painting Prize in 2010, was awarded the Owen Ridley Prize at the University of Reading for a MFA project. The artist is also the recipient of a bursary from Reading University to research her PhD in 2014. It is stated that the artist’s work won for encapsulating the focus of The Threadneedle Prize exhibition on Figurative Art Today.
Jenkins, the winner of the prize for contemporary figurative painting told Artlyst: “Im trying to analyse painting through the process of painting itself” The artist continued “What I’ve tried to do is to over-emphasise the concept of hysteria in painting; to enable it to keep up with contemporary images”.
Jenkins describes the process of figuration as a “hysterical act”. The artist’s winning painting has a Bacon-esque quality, with a contemporary twist in the form of material usage. Jenkins works on transparent plastics enabling her to work on both sides of the ‘canvas’, and strip back layers of paint revealing elements on both sides of the panels.
Whitney Hintz, one of four selectors for the prize, said: “There was a wide range of submissions but this year’s Threadneedle Prize winner stood out immediately. Tina Jenkins’ ‘Bed Head’ was one of the first works we saw on selection day and, after viewing over 3,600 submissions, it was the first work that we returned to. Her bold approach to the human form and her clever use of material impressed the judges. I look forward to seeing more of Tina’s work in the future.”