2018 Awardee: Isabelle Thomson
"I am extremely grateful to have received this award...and to work towards my ambitions full time. As an emerging artist, it is very encouraging to know you are being supported."
Biography
Isabelle is a gifted and idiosyncratic artist, who was born in Inverness and grew up in the Highlands of Scotland.
In 2016, Isabelle graduated from Gray’s School of Art with a First Class BA (Hons) in Painting. Whilst at Gray’s, she was awarded a Cross Trust Vacation Award which she used to travel to Iceland to collect visual research. This trip was the catalyst for her fourth year work and degree show.
After graduating from Gray’s, Isabelle was one of the selected Graduates in Residence at Leith School of Art. At the 2016 Visual Arts Scotland annual exhibition she won the Great Art Award.
In 2018, Isabelle exhibited in London at both the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize in the Mall Galleries and at Fully Awake in the Royal College of Art. She also received an award to undergo one-to-one animation tutorials from Highland Visual Artist & Craft Maker Award Scheme and won a Hope Scott Trust Award to for research in Canada.
Isabelle’s oil paintings often include text and other materials. She paints to understand the value of the wilderness: to reawaken our slow and essential ‘mountain time’.
How the Award Helped
Isabelle received a Dewar Arts Award to enable her to work in a Wasp’s Artist’s Studio in Inverness for a year. This enabled her to build a new body of work from her time in Canada and Scotland, and to further develop the use of animation within her practice, with the aim of using this to apply for a Masters Degree in Fine Art.
"I am extremely grateful to have received this award...and to work towards my ambitions full time. As an emerging artist, it is very encouraging to know you are being supported."