our winners 2022

Following our Awards Ceremony that took place on Thursday 30th June 2022 at Downstairs at The Department Store, we are pleased to announce the winners for Brixton Art Prize 2022!

First Prize Winner – £1,000 & a Solo Exhibition

Harumi Tanaka, Self Portrait As A Doll, Sculpture (12.5x26cm), Brixton – London.

Price: £1,000

Having been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago, I decided to portray myself as a doll. Through this, I aim to express the dark, isolated cocoon I feel I am trapped in whilst showing a strong determination to fight the illness.

I find this a rare chance to truly express the confused and overall negative feeling that I, among many others, face without an easy way to escape.

Instagram: @miruha.kanata

Second Prize Winner – £750

Claudette Forbes, Poor Cow, Sculpture (6x16cm: per piece in the collection), Bristol.

Price: Three cows – £350 each, Cow on tongue – £400

My work draws on my life experience as a child of Jamaican parents, growing up in inner city Bristol, where I witnessed first hand the race riots in 1980. The branded cow, with its M-logo legs, was inspired by a visit to family in Jamaica where, in Montego Bay, the first McDonald’s had opened. In a neighbouring field stood a solitary cow – appreciating the irony, we shouted at the cow to run for its life. This is the subject of a reggae sound track I composed and recorded to go with the collection. The truth is that the price of a Happy Meal was more than the cost of a nutritious meal in a local diner. 

The process of making this collection informed my conceptual development, leading me to think about our consumption of the cow and its environmental impact. The seated cow’s base is modelled directly from a real cow’s tongue, purchased from a butcher in Peckham, London, where I live. I aim to provoke discussion around themes that I increasingly find myself confronted by. Handling a cow’s tongue to make its mould was grotesque to me, a meat eater. This highlights contradictions in our everyday choices. I also want to test interpretations of the present day, whilst producing tangible objects that contain a certain beauty and references a past.

Instagram: @claudetteforbesceramics  | Website: claudetteforbesceramics.com

Third Prize Winner – £500

Marlowe Campbell, Seeing you, seeing me, Painting and Film (03mins 30secs), Brixton, London.

Price: NFS

Please click on the image to view the film.

Marlowe Campbell is a Fine Art Animation Director focusing on uncomfortable personal truths. She explores traditional fine art mediums in her work and has been awarded for such. As with ‘Ice Ceiling’ (2021) in which she received four awards for – First Kiss Festival, Scout Film Festival, the INDIs Film Festival and a semi-finalist award for the Link International Film Festival. 

This film, ‘Seeing you, Seeing me’, is a reflection on the infiltration of white people upon black spaces, and the feelings and resentment represented in this concept. This film was the cathartic result of a period of time in which Marlowe experienced feelings of loneliness, racism and general prejudice. The white liminal spaces reflect white people while the comfort and darkness of the house represents intimacy and solitude. ‘Seeing you, Seeing me’ has now been selected to be shown at several festivals including this exhibition.

Instagram: @mcamp4rt | Website: www.millycampbell.co.uk

John Purcell Paper Prize Winner – £250 worth of top-quality paper supplies

Sarrah El-Bushra, State of Mind, Print (31×35.5cm), London.

Price: £325

Through my artistic practice I explore my experience of being a mixed-race woman, coming from two very different cultures.

Cultural influences come from my Sudanese/British heritage and the time I spent living in the Sudan as a teenager, as well as wider Arab and Middle Eastern influences. Calligraphy and abstract patterns, which are important elements in art from the MENA region, are key elements of my work, which uses calligraphic markings and forms to create patterns and accents.

Using an abstract fusion of English and Arabic calligraphy, much of my work layers text and imagery to represent multi-layered cultural experience and thoughts on identity and belonging.

Instagram: @sarrahelb | Website: sarrahelbushra.wordpress.com