Dumfries and Galloway artist and Glasgow School of Art grad Patricia Cain, whose recent solo exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum drew in 45,000 visitors, has been shortlisted for the Derwent Art Prize 2018.
By showcasing the very best 2D & 3D artworks created in pencil, coloured pencil, pastel, graphite and charcoal, the Derwent Art Prize highlights the broad spectrum of drawing methodologies being utilised by creative practitioners across the world. The 67 artworks which make up the 2018 exhibition were selected by an expert panel comprising Gill Saunders, Senior Curator, V&A; Chris Sharratt, art critic; and Clare Woods, artist. Speaking of the selection process, Chris Sharratt reflected that ‘being a selector for this year’s Derwent Art Prize was the kind of challenge that you can’t help but enjoy. The diversity of drawing practice and the energy, thought and skill displayed by so many of the artists was exciting to see and meant that some very good work didn’t make the final selection. However, in the end I think that, after an intense process of discussion and careful consideration, this year’s exhibition provides a fitting overview of contemporary drawing practice.’
Patricia trained as a lawyer and practiced for fifteen years before completing a PhD at Glasgow School of Art in 2008. Of her artistic practice, Patricia comments that ‘everything is done freehand. My pictures tend to be quite big, the drawings are quite big anyway, and there’s something quite nice about the scale of large drawings. You find out your physical limits through drawing, which is quite interesting.’
Having lived in Glasgow since 2001, Patricia has developed a real affinity with the city, describing life there as ‘an urban experience without the sting’. In 2010, Patricia won the £25,000 Threadneedle Prize for figurative art for her large-scale canvas showing the construction of Zaha Hadid’s Glasgow Riverside Museum of Transport. Cain approached the project with the aim of capturing the experience of building work in progress, emphasising that ‘the focus is not the finished building but an investigation of the beauty of construction.’
Languages that are made to die, a new mixed media piece by Patricia Cain, will be on display at London’s prestigious Mall Galleries from 18 – 23 September 2018. Subsequent to the exhibition at Mall Galleries, the Derwent Art Prize 2018 will tour to venues across the UK including Trowbridge Arts (29 September – 10 November 2018) and Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, Cumbria (until January 2018).
