Kathryn is one of five shortlisted artists (each awarded £2500) in contention for the first prize of £25,000, which will be announced on March 4. The winner will join an elite list of previous artists to have taken the prize, including David Hockney (1967), Lisa Milroy (1989), Peter Doig (1993), Keith Coventry (2010) and Rose Wylie (2014). Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is patron of the award.
Maple’s 2020 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. A virtual tour of the exhibition is available here. The winning painting will be acquired by the Gallery to join its world-class collection, while the artist will also have a future solo display.
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.
As digital printmaking processes started to creep more into the studios I feel very lucky to have been able to use all the presses in the art school…The marks in my paintings hold and build upon my time at Brighton. Thanks go to the technicians for all their help too, and being there when you needed them!”
Alongside Kathryn, the other shortlisted paintings are: The Neanderthal Futures Infirmary by Robbie Bushe; Compost by Michele Fletcher; The Motherland by Steph Goodger; and March by Stephen Lee.
Kathryn previously exhibited in the John Moores Painting Prize in 2018 – you can hear her talking about that work here. 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.
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