Kathryn Maple who graduated in BA Fine Art Printmaking in 2011, has been shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize, Britain’s oldest painting award.
Kathryn is one of five shortlisted artists in contention for the first prize, which will be announced on 4 March 2021. The winner will join an elite list of previous artists to have taken the prize, including David Hockney, Keith Coventry and Rose Wylie. Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is patron of the award.
Maple’s painting The Common – which she described as a ‘meeting place, an intersection, people seemingly aware of each other, but minds elsewhere – all sharing an open space’ – was shortlisted from 67 paintings (chosen from around 3,000 submissions) now on show at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery until 27 June.
Following her shortlisting, Kathryn said: “I originally applied for the Painting BA at Brighton, but somehow got side tracked and ended up doing Printmaking. Three years of experimenting with all the different processes meant I could take a really investigative approach and explore the possibilities of combining different processes and techniques.
Kathryn previously exhibited in the John Moores Painting Prize in 2018 – you can hear her talking about that work on YouTube. She also showed at the 2019 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London, and has twice won the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, in 2014 and 2016.
The John Moores Painting Prize exhibition is part of Liverpool Biennial 2021, the largest festival of contemporary art in the UK, running from 20 March 20 to 6 June.
