Rich Jellyman Rich Jellyman makes paintings that reference internet culture and incorporate technology in the selection of subject matter. Utilising images that display a certain kind of internet sensibility – disposable phone photos, surreal mashups taken from Reddit threads, bad photoshop, memes, AI and video game glitches. His most recent series of paintings are anthropomorphic…
Artist of the Month November 2023: Susan Gunn, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. “In Susan Gunn’s paintings there is a subtle tension between the golden section formalism of their geometry and the unruliness of the free-form cracking. They each balance control and abandon, deliberation and chance. This is not the frivolous feminine but the ferocious…
Artist of the Month October 2023: Greg Rook, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Greg Rook’s paintings explore the rich visual history, curious cultural politics and often complex ideologies of those who seek to start a new life or wish to lead alternative lifestyles. From pioneers travelling to new continents to those wanting to stay put…
We are very pleased to announce the two exhibitions for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2023. The first will open at Huddersfield Art Gallery and the second at Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London. The 16 finalists are: Karolina Albricht, Robbie Bushe, Benjamin Deakin, Marcus Jefferies, Rich Jellyman, Lee Johnson, Allyson Keehan, Lee Maelzer, Melanie Miller, David…
An essay by Hettie Judah (writer and art critic) about the work of Lesley Bunch the winner of the CBP Prize 2022 This essay was published in the CBP Prize 2022 exhibition catalogue. The essay forms part of the prize. “…it is usually not an object’s presence but far more often its absence that clears the…
An essay by Matthew Burrows about the work of Susan Absolon the winner of the CBP Prize 2021 This essay was published in the CBP Prize 2021 exhibition catalogue. The essay forms part of the prize. ‘A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep Sustains the bed on which we lie…’ – W. H. Auden In an age…
Artist of the Month September 2023: Lesley Bunch, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Lesley Bunch won the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2022. Lesley talks about her enigmatic ‘Shadow Sculpture’ painting series which are based on the creation of shadows with ‘invested objects’ lent by other people. Reproduced in my paintings, each shadow becomes a…
Artist of the Month August 2023: Andrew Litten interviewed by Lucy Cox. Andrew examines humanistic themes such as social alienation, love, sensuality, fear, anger, loss, ageing, addiction, paranoia and other identity disturbance. His gestural figurative paintings express a strong interest in the universal complexity of everyday existence. LC: While in school, your interest in expressionist art led…
On Selecting II Shortlisting update: Gordon Dalton writes on the shortlisting process for the 2023 Contemporary British Painting Prize As Leeds buzzed with graduates popping prosecco and snapping selfies, we entered the School of Design to select the exhibiting artists for the CBP Prize exhibition. Fuelled by caffeine and cookies and armed with sharpened pencils,…
Congratulations to the long listed artists Adrian Gardner | Al Daw | Allyson Keehan | Andrew Bracey | Andrew Ekins | Andrew Hardwick | Andrew Torr | Ben Deakin | Carrie Stanley | Christopher Jones | Claire Cansick | Claude Temin-Vergez | Craig Barber | Danny Markey | David Micheaud | David Orme | Dena…
On Selecting Gordon Dalton gives a few thoughts on selecting the long list for the 2023 Contemporary British Painting Prize I’m writing this having just pressed a big red button marked ‘Finish Judging’ on the CuratorSpace online platform where over 1100 artists submitted their work for the 2023 Contemporary British Painting Prize. Actually the button was more of…
Artist of the Month July 2023: Paul Newman, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. For this month’s artist of the month article something of a different approach. Through a set of circumstances and a conceptual link to the performance aspects of Paul Newman’s practice a guest art critic / writer Derek Shard was going to interview…
X – Contemporary British Painting Catalogue X – Contemporary British Painting is a vibrant, exciting free exhibition of painting, the likes of which has not been staged in the North East in decades. Taking place at Newcastle Contemporary Art and curated by multiple award-winning artist Narbi Price, the exhibition brings together the work of over 80 artists….
Artist of the Month May 2023: Enzo Marra, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Enzo Marra’s creative practice is concerned with the direct exploration and pictorial analysis of the disparate concepts that enter his head. CBP: Initial words in response to your recent paintings are; striking, physical and direct. It feels that the imagery is paired…
Saturday 20th May – Saturday 17th June 2023 X – Contemporary British Painting is a vibrant, exciting free exhibition of painting, the likes of which has not been staged in the North East in decades. Opening on May 20th at Newcastle Contemporary Art, it has been curated by multiple award-winning artist Narbi Price, and brings…
Artist of the Month April 2023: Ruth Philo, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Ruth’s paintings explore abstraction, through colour, light and surface, often emerging from encounters with place and walking. Her work combines elements of internal and external worlds to convey a sensory experience. The scale is often intimate, the surface of the paintings pared…
Donna Mclean I’d like to have a strong identity as a painter without committing to one theme so my subject matter is varied.It pleases me to put things together that have no business being together, to create something appealing that has an unsettling undercurrent thats both seductive & disarming.I paint bombs & reduce them to…
Sally Taylor My work affirms a desire to understand more about human relationships, specifically my own interaction with others. They are equally about a balance between formal concerns and the communication of emotional resonance. Using found materials enables the superimposition of marks in relation to the personal history of the surface. Materials such as cardboard…
Gavin Maughfling Starting from an encounter with Francis Bacons’ s ‘Two Figures in the Grass’, Maughfling’s recent works ask if a painting’s viewer can be pulled through the canvas surface, so that they are simultaneously one or more of the protagonists in the scene and are at the same time an observer, looking on from…
Geraldine Swayne I am a painter and experimental musician. My paintings aren’t deliberately sensationalist, but my work has a filmic atmosphere and dreamlike quality, with uneasy undertones. I work largely from photographs rather than life, choosing images that give me a metaphysical charge, and which are drawn both from my circle of friends and anonymous…
Jesse Leroy Smith Family is a central theme of my work, an ever-evolving set of relationships in which emotion, desire and identity are tangible, fluid and vivid. I collate scrapbooks in which friends, family and heroes montage with film stills, costume and architecture alongside creatures and landscapes from my travels. They include contributions from my…