THE JUDGES

National Open Art Competition is closed

2018/19 National Open Art Competition is closed

21st National Open Art Competition Panel

The 2017 Judges included Hughie O'Donoghue RA, Jane McAdam Freud, Kelvin Okafor, Cynthia Corbett & Zelda Cheatle. The 2017 moving images Judges are Elaine Pyke and Adam Saward and the Children's judge is Marta Altés

Hughie O'Donoghue RA

Hughie O’Donoghue was born in Manchester in 1953 and now lives and works in London and Co Mayo, Ireland .

Solo museum exhibitions include Seven Halts on the Somme, Leighton House Museum, London, 2016, Painting/Memory:Artist’s Laboratory, Royal Academy, London, A Moment’s Liberty, Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, 2012, The Road, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic 2011, The Journey, Leeds City Art Gallery, 2009, Lost Histories: Imagined Realities Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands and Parables Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France 2008.

His work is in public collections throughout the world including Art Gallery of South Australia, British Museum, London, Dallas Museum of Art, USA, The Hugh Lane, Dublin, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Michigan Museum of Art, USA, Ulster Museum, Belfast, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven USA.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University College Cork, Ireland in 2005 and was elected to the Royal Academy, London in 2009 and Aosdana in 2013.

Jane McAdam Freud

Jane McAdam Freud is a British sculptor working predominantly with Installation. She is currently completing a two-year Artist’s Residency at Harrow School where she teaches classes in Sculpture. She has also taught at the Royal College of Art, London and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Jane is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors since 1994.

McAdam Freud was educated at Central School of Art, The Royal College of Art and Goldsmith’s College. She won the British Art Medal Scholarship in Rome in 1986 and the European Trebbia Award for artistic achievement in 2014. In 2016 Jane McAdam Freud was selected to membership of the RCA Court

Her works are permanently on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum and can be seen by appointment at the British Museum. She is represented in several national and international public collections including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Tate Gallery Audio Archives, National Gallery archives, The National Museum of Ireland, National Gallery of Greece and Berlin State Museum.

She is represented by Gazelli Art House, Mayfair and CE Contemporary, Milan

‪www.janemcadamfreud.com

Kelvin Okafor

Born 1st November 1985 in London, UK.
Studied a Foundation course in Art & Design at City & Guilds Art School and a graduate from Middlesex University with a B.A. (Hon)s in Fine Art.

From as early as he could remember, Kelvin Okafor has always been an emotional and highly sensitive individual. Inspired, touched and captivated by almost everything in his immediate surroundings. Around the age of 8, Okafor vividly remembers having a love and strong fascination for drawing with pencils. He found the instrument to be a humble one and would often use the expression 'aliveness' to describe its technical and sentimental value. What fascinated him most about pencils was that with single shades of lead, he could create tones and textures so defined and so abstract, an illusion of colour would be formed before him. He became heavily inspired by this notion and spent most of his early years trying to utilise its technical use.

The style in which Okafor creates his portraits is known as Hyper-realism. Art Critic, Estelle Lovatt describes his work as ‘Emotional Realism’. She mentions how the work of Okafor goes beyond being just ‘Photorealist’ drawings, and instead coins the term Emotional Realism to describe the affective nature of his artwork.
Ultimately, Okafor intends to create art that prompts an emotional response to viewers. A response that arouses the feelings of enchantment, reflection, stillness and awareness.

Cynthia Corbett

Cynthia  (Valianti) Corbett, American by birth and London resident,  is the Director of The Cynthia Corbett Gallery, an international contemporary art gallery which has an annual exhibition programme in London, Los Angeles and New York. The Gallery also participates in prestigious Art Fairs internationally.

Cynthia trained as an art historian at Christie’s Education before launching her gallery in 2004. Prior to this, she had a high profile career as an international economist, specialising in emerging markets, and was the architect and founder of the debt conversion plans for most of Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s

Cynthia (Valianti) Corbett has an MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts and Harvard Universities, whose notable alumni include Lord Michael Dobbs (House of Cards fame), ambassadors from many countries, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, Shashi Tharoor and the President of the Juilliard School, Joseph Polisi. She still attends Tufts Alumni reunions and programmes internationally.

Since opening her gallery, Cynthia’s original stable of artists have all established successful careers. However, Cynthia still enjoys the process of identifying trends and supporting fledging careers and with this in mind launched The Young Masters Art Prize in 2009, a unique not-for-profit initiative which gives a platform to both emerging and established artists who pay homage to the skill and innovation of the Old Masters and art of the past. The 2014 edition saw the launch of the first Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramic Prize for artists working in ceramics. The fourth edition of Young Masters will take place in 2017 with  judges including art historian Godfrey Barker and Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts, Charles Saumarez Smith.

Cynthia Corbett is a founding and Board member of the Association of Women Art Dealers, member of The Arts Club, The Norwood Club in NYC, House of St Barnabas and is a Patron of the Royal Academy of Arts, the  Tate, the Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Camden Arts Centre and the Met Breuer in New York.

Zelda Cheatle

Zelda Cheatle has worked with photography her entire life. Firstly as a practitioner, then at the Photographers Gallery.

Opening her own gallery and publishing company in 1989-2005. Following on from this, 2005-2012 she founded and managed The Photography Fund which collected over 6000 iconic prints across the 20th century.

Latterly she has been curating major exhibitions, in China, UAE, Saudi Arabia and London.

Elaine Pyke

Elaine Pyke joined New Pictures in 2014, as an Executive Producer currently working on a new series called The Innocents for Netflix Originals. Her other credits with New Pictures include Indian Summers and The Missing.

Elaine was Channel Director for Sky Atlantic HD, responsible for all acquired and commissioned programming on the channel, Sky Atlantic strategy, as well as the on and off screen promotion and identity brand of the channel. She oversaw a 15% year on year increase in channel share and a move into original scripted drama which included The Tunnel, Fleming and Hit and Miss and Fortitude.

In her previous role as Head of Drama at Sky, Elaine launched a raft of new dramas including Falcon, Skellig, Inspector Thorne and three Terry Pratchett Disc World adaptations. She was responsible for returning series’ Strike Back and Mad Dogs, which have achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic in addition to two collaborations with Charlie Pattinson – The Take and The Runaway.

She is married to the artist Richard Dawson and lives in Brighton.

Adam Saward

Adam Saward was born in Chichester in 1963 and lived there until the age of 17 when he moved to London to start work as a runner before moving up to become a production assistant, production manager, producer and executive producer.

He has produced many award-winning commercials and music videos during his career, and has worked on everything from tiny charitable films to epic productions filmed all over the world.

Having owned and run a couple of Soho-based production companies he has been responsible for launching the careers of a number of highly respected directors and produced some of the most memorable and iconic music videos for artists such as The Spice Girls, Texas, George Michael (RIP) Robbie Williams, and many other artists.

Marta Altés (Children's Judge)

Marta Altés is the award-winning creator of I am an Artist!, My Grandpa, The King Cat and Little Monkey. She studied her degree in Graphic Design in Barcelona and then moved to the UK to study for an MA in Children's Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. She graduated in 2011 and published her first picture book with Macmillan Children's Books in 2013. Since then she has won numerous prizes for her work. As well as publishing, Marta also illustrates for French and Spanish magazines, works with various advertising agencies and has run illustration workshops at the National Portrait Gallery. Marta lives in London and her next book is a beautiful new illustrated gift edition of Kipling's Just So Stories, Publishing October 2017.

THE 2016 JUDGES WERE DAVID REMFRY RA, FIONA KINGSMAN, ROBIN MUIR, ANNA KOSKA & LORENZO BELENGUER. THE 2016 MOVING IMAGES JUDGES WERE SARAH CUNCLIFFE AND KATHY OLDRIDGE. THE 2016 CHILDRENS JUDGE WAS THE CHILDRENS LAUREATE CHRIS RIDDELL

DAVID REMFRY

David Remfry’s artistic career spans more than 40 years having studied at Hull College of Art from 1959-1964.
A painter, Remfry has had over 60 solo exhibitions in Europe and America including exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull.
Remfry was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1987. In 2001 he was awarded the M.B.E. for services to British Art in America by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 2006 he was elected a Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London and in 2007 he was invited to receive Honorary Doctorate of Arts by the University of Lincoln. In 2010 he was awarded the Hugh Casson Drawing Prize by the Royal Academy of Arts.
A series of recent portraits can also be found in We Think The World of You ; People and Dogs Drawn Together  by David Remfry published by the Royal Academy in 2015.

ROBIN MUIR

Robin Muir is a  photographic historian, exhibition organizer and a former picture editor of Vogue and the Sunday Telegraph Magazine and currently Contributing Editor to Vogue. He writes regularly on photography and contemporary art for Vogue and for The World of Interiors. He has published many books on photography, including Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion (2004), Unseen Vogue (2002) and its sequels, People in Vogue (2003), Vogue Covers (2007) as well as Under the Influence: John Deakin, Photography and the Lure of Soho (2014). Most recently he has curated Vogue 100 A Century of Style  for the National Portrait Gallery, London

FIONA KINGSMAN

Fiona has worked for the Tate Learning department for 10 years, initially at Tate Modern and then as a member of the London cross-site Senior Management team.  She is now working on the development of the Tate Exchange programme, which will be launched in the new Tate Modern building in September 2016.
She has been a Production Manager for the independent film and television company Seventh Art Productions. She joined Creative Partnerships, Kent in 2003, where she worked with Artangel on the Margate Exodus, a 2 year large scale community arts project, running its education programme.

LORENZO BELENGUER

Lorenzo Belenguer is an art critic, curator and artist who's been based in London for the last 12 years. Born in Valencia, Belenguer has been writing for the Huffington Post and is currently reviewing art exhibitions for Sluice Magazine, Artlyst and FAD Arts Magazine. He's fascinated by the way Social Media and the new technologies has "disrupted" the art criticism discourse facilitating a more democratic participation. As a curator, Belenguer run the Gallery at Willesden Green, London, for 7 years; and is presently curating an exhibition about Contemporary Minimalism, that includes Gavin Turk, for Le Dame Gallery in Regent's Park, London. As an artist, Belenguer is heavily influenced by Minimalism and Arte Povera and has exhibited in the Tate Modern and the 56th Venice Biennale and has been invited to performances in the Serpentine Gallery and Tate Liverpool.

ANNA KOSKA

Anna is a published professional illustrator of some 25 years, and to date has illustrated in excess of 100 books. As well as book illustration, Anna regularly receives commissions from chefs, authors and restaurateurs for food and botanical art.
Having been discouraged from taking art beyond the school classroom, but inspired by the words of her Grandfather “If you have a talent, it is your duty to polish it every day.” she felt compelled to return to it some years later. As such she is entirely self taught.

CHRIS RIDDELL (CHILDREN'S JUDGE)

Chris Riddell is the Children’s Laureate and a prolific writer and illustrator whose work is familiar to both children and adults. He is known especially for his distinctive line drawings with their clever caricature, fascinating detail and often enchanting fantasy elements. He has won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal twice. His solo work includes the Goth Girl series, the Ottoline series and the picture books The Emperor of Absurdia and Alienography.  He received the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration at last year’s Hay Festival and was named Waterstones Children's Laureate in June 2015. In addition to his children’s books, Chris is a renowned political cartoonist whose work appears in The Observer, The Literary Review and The New Statesman.

SARAH CUNLIFFE (MOVING IMAGE JUDGE)

Sarah is an award-winning producer, writer, director and executive producer. Her most recent productions include the ITV mini-series BRITAINS WHALES & BRITAIN’S SHARKS presented by Ben Fogle and Ellie Harrison, which airs in the spring. Sarah set up Big Wave Productions in 1997. Based on the UK’s south coast, the company specialises in wildlife, science and adventure documentaries for broadcasters worldwide.  Sarah has overseen more than 50 hours of programming & Big Wave’s programs have won more than 70 international awards and nominations.

KATHY OLDRIDGE (MOVING IMAGE JUDGE)

Kathy is a marketing expert and film maker who deliberately juxtaposes art and business.
As a Director of a Marketing Consultancy she develops and runs behaviour change programmes around Communication, Design and Innovation for clients including Unilever, Heineken and Aviva. In this work she uses her art practice to create content and films, to make ideas tangible, helping people get things out of their heads and into reality.  
Highly collaborative in her approach she is equally happy working in any country around the world or in her shed planning the next community film festival that she runs.