Main Prize Winner: Hannah Downing -
'A view from above' |
(Joint) Peoples Prize Winner: Andrew Hladky - 'Building for a better future'
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(Joint) Peoples Prize Winner: Steph Goodger - 'Pandemonium the Chopping & the Boiling (triptych)'
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Elysium Gallery continued with its series of off-site events before moving to its new premises on College Street in 2013 by launching the first ever Beep: Wales International Painting Prize. The exhibition took place in the large Volcano Theatre arts space on Swansea High Street and encouraged submissions from artists’ that celebrated contemporary painting on a grand scale.
The chosen theme was Through Tomorrow’s Eyes and featured over 40 national and international artists. Curated by Elysium Gallery director and artist Jonathan Powell and judged by artists Neale Howells and Rob Newell, The exhibition imagined scenarios for our world and its peoples set in Utopian and Dystopian futures.
'Utopia gives the human race scope for imagining, inventing and reinventing possible futures and new worlds. Is our idyllic Avalon a city-less world where widely spaced earth-sheltered towns offer sweeping views over the green plains, valleys and mountains? Where high-speed air trains link the communities, cycle ways dominate the human landscape, non-polluting solar and wind generated power fuels all vehicles, all food is fresh and home-grown and everything is reused and recycled?
Or do our futures lie in the sprawling Dystopian cities spreading their tentacles across the globe in the form of highways feeding the city; humanity is exhausting the Earth’s raw materials by which it is sustained, is it thus drawing the rest of the planet into its inevitable apocalyptic end? One argument is that the future of the human race lies in its genesis – with a vital need to reconnect with nature and follow a more spiritual path. For this to happen, do we need to break away from the materialistic constraints of the city – its tendency to coerce the mass into subjugation and dependency – rendering them unable to survive outside of it?'
The first Beep: Wales International Painting Prize enabled us to look Through Tomorrow’s Eyes to shed light on some of this.
The chosen theme was Through Tomorrow’s Eyes and featured over 40 national and international artists. Curated by Elysium Gallery director and artist Jonathan Powell and judged by artists Neale Howells and Rob Newell, The exhibition imagined scenarios for our world and its peoples set in Utopian and Dystopian futures.
'Utopia gives the human race scope for imagining, inventing and reinventing possible futures and new worlds. Is our idyllic Avalon a city-less world where widely spaced earth-sheltered towns offer sweeping views over the green plains, valleys and mountains? Where high-speed air trains link the communities, cycle ways dominate the human landscape, non-polluting solar and wind generated power fuels all vehicles, all food is fresh and home-grown and everything is reused and recycled?
Or do our futures lie in the sprawling Dystopian cities spreading their tentacles across the globe in the form of highways feeding the city; humanity is exhausting the Earth’s raw materials by which it is sustained, is it thus drawing the rest of the planet into its inevitable apocalyptic end? One argument is that the future of the human race lies in its genesis – with a vital need to reconnect with nature and follow a more spiritual path. For this to happen, do we need to break away from the materialistic constraints of the city – its tendency to coerce the mass into subjugation and dependency – rendering them unable to survive outside of it?'
The first Beep: Wales International Painting Prize enabled us to look Through Tomorrow’s Eyes to shed light on some of this.
The beep2012 judges were Neale Howells, Dr. Robert Newell and Dr. Catrin Webster.
Read more about them in the exhibitors catalogue (below).
Read more about them in the exhibitors catalogue (below).
