Musician and artist, Francis Bailey has emerged winner of the National Art Gallery’s biennial National Drawing Competition for his work, ‘The Festival of Dreams.’
The winners of the competition were announced on Thursday and Bailey was awarded the Gold Medal and an honorarium of $75,000 for his work. Burrowes School of Art (BSA) graduate Winston Alexander won the second prize and a silver medal for, ‘The Dream’; he also received $50,000.
A press release from the gallery stated that two artistes tied for third and $35,000; Darnell Wilson for “Vintage’ and Dominique Hunter for ‘Surrender’. Hunter and Wilson were previous winners in the competition which is in its eight biennial year.
Republic Bank has exclusively sponsored the competition since 1996 and according to the release curator of the gallery Elfrieda Bissember praised the bank for its unwavering support. Bissember also pointed out that the competition had doubled since its last occasion, from 17 artists and 33 entries in 2008 to 34 artistes submitting 64 entries this year.
The special young person prize of a bronze medal and a cash award of $25,000 went to Stephen Craig for ‘Hurt the floorboards’ while honourable mentions went to Jorge Bowen-Forbes for ‘Los Pescadores’ (The Fishermen) and Travell Blackman for ‘Engine Oil’.
The exhibition of competition entries runs at Castellani House from October 22 to November 13, 2010. The judges for the competition this year were artist Merlene Ellis; musician Dave Martins and artist Kathleen Thompson-Henriquo.
