Visual Arts Round-Up

We’re incredibly proud of our Awardees, who each demonstrate outstanding talent in their field. This week, we’re shining a spotlight on some of the stunning work produced by those working in the visual arts.

Erin McQuarrie (2023)

Erin McQuarrie is a textile artist and researcher from Glasgow based in the Scottish Highlands. She believes ancient methods of making provide an innovative means of interpreting and responding to contemporary life. Her work will feature in ‘Collective Threads’ at The Invisible Dog Art Centre in Brooklyn, New York. Curated by Ana Watterson, the exhibition will be accompanied by two weeks of textile and fibre-filled workshops, demonstrations, and performances.

Collective Threads
Thursday 23 January – Sunday 2 February 2025
The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn

 

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Haneen Hadiy (2022)

Haneen Hadiy is a visual artist whose work explores her Scottish and Iraqi identity. Her works are known for their distinctive intimacy and integrity. She continuously experiments through a variety of mediums to explore her family history, cultural heritage, and identity as a diasporic artist. ‘Scotland Through Her Eyes’ explores the intersection of cultural identity, spirituality, and the natural beauty of Scottish landscapes through the lens of Islamic symbolism. The work is currently featured in Nationhood: Memory and Hope, a new exhibition of powerful and poignant photography celebrating the diversity of the UK today. The exhibition will run at Impressions Gallery in Bradford from 11 January to 26 April 2024, before touring to Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Nationhood: Memory and Hope
Saturday 11 January 11 – Saturday 26 April 2025
Impressions Gallery, Bradford

 

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Jean Oberlander (2018)

Jean Oberlander is a Scottish textile artist, educator and writer. Her work focuses on journeys and memories of stitches. Her work will feature in Piecing, a group show with Hannah Zbitnew and Ruby Smith at Garage Gallery in Walthomstow, London. The artists describe the show as “an ode to memories of stitches, using what you have and building connections between layers of material”.

Piecing
Friday 7 – Sunday 9 February 2025
Garage Gallery E17, London

 

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Thomas Cameron (2019)

Thomas Cameron closed 2024 with a solo exhibition ‘Twenty-six days a year’ at Canopy Collections in London. Focusing on subjects depicted in moments of waiting, the exhibition captured the understated moments in life, often spent alone and almost immediately forgotten. It was the first exhibition to examine the theme of waiting in Cameron’s practice, which is characterised by figurative paintings depicting everyday scenes of people in the city.

Thomas Cameron | Twenty-six days a year
Friday 8 November— Friday 20 December 2024
Canopy Collections HQ, London

Awardee Spotlight: Tessa Mackenzie

Glassworker and illustrator Tessa Mackenzie (Dewar Awardee 2023) has recently opened The Glaziers Arms in Glasgow’s East End.

Tessa Mackenzie is a glassworker and illustrator based in Glasgow. She is interested in research-led projects, material focus in the built environment, and storytelling.

Tessa moved from London to Glasgow in 2012 to study Communication Design at the Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating she has developed a material-led practice, with a focus around how Stained Glass can enhance the way we experience architecture and the role it has to play in telling the stories of people that occupy a space.

In 2023, Tessa received a Dewar Award to help her explore the technique of acid etching. As Tessa is a self-taught glassmaker, she didn’t have the opportunity to learn complex techniques in a traditional environment. Her Dewar Award allowed her to seek private tuition with stained glass artist Brian Waugh, access necessary facilities, cover material expenses and allocate dedicated time. This financial backing not only allowed her to learn the ancient technique but also paved the way for her to confidently explore innovative methods of production, enhancing and elevating her artistic practice.

Her final piece combines techniques of acid etching, engraving, silver stain, painted enamel, plating and fusing, and images of the work can be viewed in the gallery below.

In August 2024, Tessa opened The Glaziers Arms, a new studio in Glasgow’s East End. The space offers workshops, stained glass windows and glass homewares. To find out more, visit the Instagram or website. You can also find out more about Tessa’s work at tessamackenzie.com.

Awardee News: Jen Hadfield

Dewar Awardee Jen Hadfield is one of the recipients of this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes.

One of the most significant and prestigious international literary awards, the Windham-Campbell Prizes celebrate achievement across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama. The prizes are administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and recognise how challenging it can be to work in the creative industries. The award allows recipients to focus on their creative practice, independent of financial concerns. Writers do not apply for the prizes, but are instead nominated by an anonymous prize-giving committee.

A quote from the prize committee said: ‘Jen Hadfield’s intricate poems slow down time, reveal overlooked details of the natural world, and forge complex relationships between language, history, and place.’

In 2007, a Dewar Award supported Hadfield to travel to Mexico and research Mexican devotional folk art. This research trip inspired the creation of ‘Nigh-No-Place’, a solo exhibition of Shetland ex-votos in the style of sacred Mexican folk art – ‘tiny, portable, insistently familiar landscapes packed in an array of weathered tobacco tins, incorporating rubrics of very short fiction’.

Speaking of her Dewar Award, Jen said:
“The Dewar Award represented a green light to put my creative work first for most of a year… I consider the Dewar Award to have marked a crucial stage in my developing confidence as an artist in multiple disciplines.”

Jen’s second poetry collection ‘Nigh-No-Place’ won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2008, and her fourth poetry collection, The Stone Age, won the Highland Book Prize in 2021. Storm Pegs, her work of lyrical non-fiction about island life, will be published by Picador in July 2024.

Read more about Jen Hadfield on the Windham Campbell website

If you feel a Dewar Arts Award could support you in your progression as a young artist, or know someone else who might benefit, find out more about how to apply on our Eligibility and Application pages

Awardee News: Embedded Musicians

Dewar Awardees Calum Huggan and Rylan Gleave feature in new short film from Chamber Music Scotland.

Dewar Awardees Calum Huggan (2011) and Rylan Gleave (2021) are featured in a new short film ‘Embedded Musicians’ from Chamber Music Scotland.

Embedded Musicians was an artist-led project that set out to explore and transform chamber music performance. Taking chamber music out of the concert hall, Chamber Music Scotland supported five musicians to form long-term partnerships with performing arts venues across Scotland. The musicians collaborated with regional communities to develop inclusive events that responded to the needs of local groups with a diverse range of chamber music activity.

🎥 Watch the film below or on YouTube:

Awardee News: Rylan Gleave

In Chemical Transit, the debut album from All Men Unto Me, explores Rylan Gleave’s vocal journey from Mezzo-Soprano to Bass-Baritone.

The debut album from All Men Unto Me, a project led by 2021 Dewar Awardee Rylan Gleave, has been released to critical acclaim.

In Chemical Transit explores Rylan’s vocal journey from Mezzo-Soprano to Bass-Baritone and serves as a window intothree moments in his transition: pre-transition, 8 weeks on Testosterone, and 2.5 years on Testosterone. Using historic recordings of Rylan’s voice, In Chemical Transit is a time capsule of voices that will never sound again. The album is underpinned by Cherubino’s aria Voi che sapete from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The aria’s themes permeate the entirety of the record, with a repeated appeal to know “s’io l’ho nel cor”—“if it is in my heart”—returning multiple times in both Italian and English.

Gleave’s exploration of the operatic material is influenced not only by his classical training, but also his avant-garde metal vocals for band Ashenspire. There are also additional themes drawn from minimalism, church music, post-punk, and drone. His broken voice alternates between strangled falsetto, guttural shrieks, and full-bodied classical baritone, and has been likened to ‘Tilt-era Scott Walker’ by C.M. Queen.

The critical response to the release has been positive, with Echoes and Dust calling the album “a provocative sound capsule for the more open minded music lover” and Noob Heavy calling In Chemical Transit “an utterly singular work, the sort of daring project that sits at the forefront of art in both the musical and sociological sense”.

Rylan’s 2021 Dewar Award supported him through an MMus Degree with Dr. Linda Buckley at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he won the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Composition prize.

A digital edition of the album can be downloaded from Bandcamp. Congratulations Rylan – we can’t wait to see what you do next!

Awardee News: Martin Lee Thomson

Congratulations to Dewar Awardee Martin Lee Thomson, whose duo Dopey Monkey have been appointed Chamber Music Scotland’s 2022-24 Ensemble in Residence.

Dopey Monkey have been appointed as Chamber Music Scotland’s 2022-24 Ensemble in Residence. The euphonium and tuba duo were formed in 2015 by Danielle Price and Martin Lee Thomson, a Dewar Awardee in 2017. The duo have since become known for their diverse and innovative new music, which blends jazz, folk, classical, and experimental music influences. They are passionate about showcasing the versatility of their instruments with original performances and cross-arts projects.

A Dewar Awardee in 2017, Martin’s award supported his studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he studied under tuba soloist Oren Marshall on the BMus Jazz course.

As a duo, Dopey Monkey have been invited guest artists at Gravissimo Festival 2018 and the prestigious International Tuba and Euphonium Conference in Iowa, 2019. They were Dandelion Scotland Musicians in Residence for Findhorn Bay Arts in 2022. They are excited to find ways of further sharing their work, both in Scotland and internationally as CMS’s Ensemble in Residence 2022-24.

Listen to the duo performing in the video below.

Read more about Chamber Music Scotland
Read Martin’s Awardee Profile

New Contemporaries 2023

Dewar Awardees Thomas Cameron and Haneen Hadiy among artists selected for the 2023 programme

We’re delighted to see Dewar Awardees Thomas Cameron (2019) and Haneen Hadiy (2022) among the artists selected for New Contemporaries 2023. New Contemporaries celebrates emergent art practice in the UK, supporting contemporary visual artists to successfully transition from education into professional practice.

Running since 1949, the programme has held a vital role in the UK arts scene, introducing audiences to a list of well-known artists that includes David Hockney, Derek Jarman, and Rachel Maclean. This year’s selection includes final year students and recent graduates from arts institutions across the UK, as well as practitioners on alternative peer-to-peer learning programmes.

Thomas Cameron

Born in Helensburgh in 1992, Thomas is a painter with a distinctive poetic vision. He completed a BA in Fine Art at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee in 2014. He received a Dewar Arts Award in 2019, which enabled him to maintain studio space and to create a body of work focusing on the people and places of Glasgow. His work captures the optical pulse of the city and examines the detachment induced by consumerism, as well as pushing back against it. He now works and lives in London, and recently graduated with a MA Fine Art degree from the City and Guilds of London Art School.

Awardee Profile | Website

Haneen Hadiy

Haneen Hadiy was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Iraqi parents in 1999. Hadiy’s visual artistic practice explores her cultural heritage, family history and the reality of belonging between her motherland Iraq and her land of birth Scotland. Her 2022 Dewar Award supported the development and installation of a solo exhibition of her work in Iraq. Her works are known for their distinctive intimacy and integrity, and she continuously experiments through a variety of mediums to explore her family history, cultural heritage, and identity as a diasporic artist.

Awardee Profile | Website

Work by Thomas, Haneen and the other artists selected for the 2023 programme will be featured in an exhibition that will tour to the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool and Camden Art Centre in London. As well as being included in the 2023 Exhibition and Online Platform, these artists will have access to a range of opportunities including mentoring, talks, and workshops through New Contemporaries bespoke Bridget Riley Artists’ Development Programme.

Congratulations to Haneen and Thomas, we can’t wait to see what you do next!

New original soundtrack from Blair Mowat

Dewar Awardee Blair Mowat has composed the music for the new ITV drama ‘Nolly’, created by Russell T. Davies and starring Helena Bonham Carter.

Blair Mowat received a Dewar Arts Award in 2008 to help support his postgraduate studies at Bristol University. He graduated from the university with an MA in Composition for Film and Television and his career has gone from strength to strength since then.

A prolific composer of scores for film, theatre and television, he now has well over two hundred credits. His clients include the BBC, Channel 4, the English National Ballet and Royal Shakespeare Company. Most recently, he has worked on the ITV mini-series Nolly, created by Russell T. Davies and starring Helena Bonham Carter. The soundtrack album is now available to purchase on digital platforms, or you can stream a track below.

Congratulations Blair – we can’t wait to see what you do next!

Read Blair’s Awardee Profile

Join our board

Would you like to help support the brightest and best of Scotland’s young artistic talent? We are seeking new trustees to join the Dewar Arts Awards board.

The Dewar Arts Awards are seeking new Trustees, with relevant knowledge and experience, to join our Board and support the brightest and best of Scotland’s young artistic talent. We are a grant making charity that funds exceptional young artists in any discipline who do not have the financial means to achieve their full potential.

You would be joining a Board with a strong mix of governance, creative and social experience which has led to 1,121 young people being awarded over £6m in funding over the last 21 years. As a Trustee you will be expected to enhance our ability to make the right, life changing, decisions for young people and in turn ensure the future of the arts in Scotland and its impact on the rest of the world.

We’re keen to hear from individuals from any art form but are particularly interested in those with experience of theatre, visual arts, literature, craft, and those who work across mediums reflecting new ways of thinking and working.

As essential as your expertise in the arts, is your lived experience of growing up, learning or working in Scotland, which will help us to better understand some of the challenges our young applicants have. As a charity we value legal and compliance, research and evaluation, cultural education, and financial input, as we oversee an asset portfolio that is managed by professional fund managers. If you have a blend of the above, we would be pleased to hear from you.

Trustees meet five times a year in person across Scotland or online when appropriate. Applications are sifted and collated by the charity’s Administrator but there is preparation required in reading the applications so that you can make grant recommendations and take part in discussions about applicants at the meeting. The number of applications range from 12 to 40 per meeting. There are sub groups which you may be asked to join which meet in between Board meetings usually online. This is a voluntary role but expenses will be reimbursed.

To apply please send your CV and covering letter to admin@dewarawards.org for the attention of the chair.

For more information on the Dewar Arts Awards, please visit: www.dewarawards.org

Awardee’s short film qualifies for the 2023 Academy Awards

Screenwriter Hannah Kelso’s ‘Night of the Living Dread’ is long-listed for Best Animated Short

Dewar Awardee Hannah Kelso wrote the screenplay for ‘Night of the Living Dread’, a comedy horror that has now been longlisted in the Oscars Best Animated Short category.

Hannah received a Dewar Award in 2018, which helped support her MA Screenwriting studies at the National Film & Television School. Of her Dewar Award, Hannah said: “This industry is highly competitive but I am now in the right place and equipped with the right tools for the future”.

Congratulations Hannah – we can’t wait to see what you do next!

You can watch the trailer for ‘Night of the Living Dread’ below:

 

Read Hannah’s Awardee Profile
Watch Night of the Living Dread