Home    Staff    Alumni    Blog    Online-Show

Swansea College of Art logo


SWANSEA COLLEGE OF ART BLOG

TOMOS SPARNON FIRST PRIZE 2017 OPEN ART COMPETITION AT Y GALERI CAERFFILI

February 2017


 

 

Tomos Sparnon, Second year student at Swansea College of Art (UWTSD) awarded First Prize in the 2017 Open Art competition at Y Galeri Caerffili.


Tomos Sparnon

'Y Hunain / The Self' by Tomos Sparnon 


Around 200 pieces of work were submitted by 70 artists, and 115 pieces were selected to be exhibited at the gallery. Tomos submitted three pieces of work to the competition and all three were selected for exhibition.

These were self-portraits – one on paper, one on wood and the other on cardboard.

The winning piece was a charcoal drawing on paper, produced in response to a recent visit to Frank Auerbach’s exhibition at Tate Britain and especially his ‘Self-portrait’ from 1958.

Tomos prize also includes an exhibition with artist Mark Youd at Y Galeri Caerffili.

Judges' overview:

The winning artist Tomos Sparnon is a worthy winner and is building his work on strong foundations.

He has investigated the history of his subject, identified what resonates with him and, rather than merely copying his heroes, we see him learning their lessons, reverse engineering their techniques and applying them to his own work.  

The features in Tomos' self-portrait are described by a nest of energetic marks, both added and removed, that avoid direct illustration. He uses collage as a compositional tool in a way that elevates his work beyond pastiche. We are keen to see how Tomas uses the lessons of the past to develop a fresh approach to the challenge of portraiture.

 

Share