The shortlist for The Fine Art Textiles Award 2022, supported by The Open College of the Arts, has now been announced.
The international juried exhibition recognises the creative talents and skills of a broad community of high-calibre artists using textiles, cloth and thread as their primary medium, and offers a prize of £5,000 for the winning work. The award is open to amateur and practising artists (including quilters) that are producing premium gallery quality fine art. Entries must transcend their craft or making process to stand alone as visual art.
This year’s awards are judged by a panel of established textile artists and designers, art educators and curators: Annie Warburton (CEO at Cockpit, London’s leading contemporary craft studios), textile artists, Esna Su, Michael Brennand-Wood, Yemi Awosile and Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada; and textile art editor and writer, Jo Hall.
The winner of FATA 2022, supported by The Open College of the Arts, with a prize of £5,000 is Jess Blaustein for Table Settings.
A £500 award for Innovative Use of Textiles was awarded to Tanya Bentham for The Three Living and the Three Dead.
Shortlisted works were displayed at an exhibition at The Festival of Quilts at the NEC Birmingham in August, and can be seen again at The Knitting & Stitching Shows in London from 6th-9th October and Harrogate 17th-20th November.
The award judges said:
“Following rigorous selection, the final award shortlist presents the very best in cutting edge work. The Fine Art Textiles Award is a unique exhibition which seeks to demonstrates the high standards of expression and skill in the artistic medium of conceptual textiles today. We were pleased to see a wide spectrum of approaches across textile mediums and techniques reflected in the 160 works submitted, which ranged from wearable art, knit and weave to print, machine and hand stitch. Subjects covered everything from the environment, social and historical commentary to satire and portraiture, whether figurative or abstract. We particularly appreciated those entries that were rigorous when investigating conceptual ideas, but also those that felt authentic in their personal expression.”