£6,500 available for young North East artists

For the fourth year, Cheeseburn Sculpture with the support of The Gillian Dickinson Trust, open the call for the North East Young Sculptor of the Year.

The Gillian Dickinson North East Young Sculptor of the Year is an annual award of £6,500 to encourage new talent and to support the early careers of young North East artists and sculptors, providing a professional showcase for their work.

This new call out sees Cheeseburn Sculpture renew its partnership with the Gillian Dickinson Trust, following on from a three-year agreement in 2015 this extension will see a commitment to the award for the next three years – until 2021 - thereby cementing the support for early career artists from the region.

Says Curator Matthew Jarrett:

“We hope this award will give a young artist the opportunity to realise an ambitious new piece of sculpture or installation at Cheeseburn. We have worked with over 30 young artists during the first 3 years of the Award and the 3 previous winners have all produced extraordinary artworks that have been the highlight of our summer open weekends. We are excited to see the applications over the next few months and look forward to the exhibition of proposals in May 2019.”

The initiative has been developed by Cheeseburn Sculpture with financial support from the Gillian Dickinson Trust whose charitable funding promotes creative opportunities for young people aged under 25 who are either from the North East, are studying or live and work in the North East.

In the first year of the award in 2016, the exhibition of young sculptors attracted huge public interest with over 1,000 visitors to the exhibition and a significant online presence.

Popularity for the competition and the exhibition has grown year on year, with a record number of visitors flocking to see the work of last year’s winner, Newcastle University MA student Peter Hanmer.

Hanmer’s installation entitled ‘Plato’s Lair’ was on show at Cheeseburn throughout spring and summer 2018 and had an enthusiastic response from media and public alike. In 2018, Clare Townley was selected as the third winner of the accolade, her sculpture which comments on the blight of plastics on the environment will be unveiled at Cheeseburn in 2019.

Cheeseburn now opens the application process for the fourth award, interested artists should send six images of current work on a PDF by Monday 10th December 2018.

To apply, you must:

• be between the ages of 18 and 25 years old
• be from the North East of England (or returning to the region after studying away) or,
• studying in the region and committed to establishing an artistic practice in the North East, or,
• already be practising in the North East

Find out more and apply at http://cheeseburn.com