2012 Awardee: Jessica Ashman

It excites me to be part of an industry which makes the impossible possible, and reaches out to the hearts and minds of audiences from all walks of life

YEAR OF AWARD: 2012
AGE AT AWARD: 26
ARTFORMS: , ,
WEBSITE:https://www.jessla.co.uk/
 
 

Biography

Jessica moved to Edinburgh from the Midlands in 2008, after gaining a coveted place on the Animator Apprenticeship Scheme run by what was then Scottish Screen. She proved herself to be a commited and passionate young animator, with the necessary patience and core skills required to make a career in the artform.

After her apprenticeship, Jessica lived and worked in Glasgow.  She made a name for herself as a freelance director and animator in the film and TV industries.

Jessica’s passion for directing comes from the ability to share stories, experiences and emotions through work on screen.  Her short film Fixing Luka is a stop motion animaton that explores her personal experience of growing up with a younger brother who has autism.  The film went on to win a New Talent BAFTA for Original Score and a Scottish BAFTA for Best Animation in 2011.

Also in 2011, Jessica was commissioned as a writer/director on B3 Media’s Talentlab Programme;  a creative development programme produced in partnership with Skillset and BBC Films.  She received mentor support from top industry professionals and on completion was accepted onto the prestigious MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art.

How the Award Helped

Studying for a masters degree provided a crucial tipping point for Jessica, taking her to the next level of her career.  She received a Dewar Award to enable her to benefit from this opportunity to the full.

Trailer: Fixing Luka

Trailer: Tenderfoot (MA final year film from RCA) 

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It excites me to be part of an industry which makes the impossible possible, and reaches out to the hearts and minds of audiences from all walks of life

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2012 Awardee: Gillian Park

Completing my Masters degree at the National Film and Television School is my number one priority

YEAR OF AWARD: 2012
AGE AT AWARD: 23
ARTFORMS: , , ,
WEBSITE:https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6353522/
 
 

Biography

Gillian Park is a young screenwriter of exceptional talent and great promise.  She is a natural storyteller with a flair for comedy and a powerful, original voice.  Her work reflects her Scottish background with a warmth, vigour and authenticity, but she is equally able to push outside the confines of her own experience to explore different genres and areas of writing.

Born in Irvine, Gillian left school at 17 to do a HNC in TV Production at Glasgow Metropolitan College.  Whilst there she discovered a passion for writing, and after finishing her course she was accepted on a course of study at the RSAMD (now the RCS).  The short film she wrote and directed there was screened internationally at a number of festivals and went on to win several awards.  She graduated from her degree with first class honours.

After graduating, Gillian began working with a variety of production companies, but her dream was to study screenwriting at the National Film and Television School.  In 2012 she applied with a script set in Scotland and was successful, gaining an outstanding opportunity to hone her craft.  The fees and living costs in London proved challenging, however, and Gillian was awarded a Dewar Arts Award to support her in completing her MA and making the most of the opportunity she had strived for.

Agent: http://www.casarotto.co.uk/client/gillian-park–18650

How the Award Helped

Gillian received a Dewar Arts Award to enable her to complete her masters degree at the National Film and Television School, London.

Since the Award

March 2015 – Nominated for a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award: Writer, Flotsam

Trailer: The Last Resort written by Gillian Park (c) NFTS 2014

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Completing my Masters degree at the National Film and Television School is my number one priority

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2012 Awardee: Heather Ross

There has been a great deal of progression within my work. From my critical and contextual awareness of the concepts and underlying theories, to a greater engagement with materials; I have established a practice that is continually evolving.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2012
AGE AT AWARD: 29
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

In 2005, Heather Ross graduated from Gray’s School of Art as an outstanding painter with a first class honour degree.  Her talent was recognised by the school and she was offered the opportunity to lecture there part time.

Heather is curious and ambitious, and has won numerous distinctions, awards and scholarships to exhibit and travel. She is driven to pursue her passion, and in 2012 gained a place on a prestigious masters course at Chelsea College of Art.

How the Award Helped

Heather’s Dewar Award supported her in accepting her place to study at the Chelsea College of Art.

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There has been a great deal of progression within my work. From my critical and contextual awareness of the concepts and underlying theories, to a greater engagement with materials; I have established a practice that is continually evolving.

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2011 Awardee: Kirsty Hendry

I would be delighted to accept your offer of an award. My sincere thanks to trustees for their generous support.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2011
AGE AT AWARD: 23
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

From Scone in Perthshire, Kirsty graduated from art college in Aberdeen with a first-class degree in printmaking. As a second-year student she was nominated for The Cross Trust Study Vacation Award which enabled her to attend a papermaking course in Takashima, Japan. In her third year she was selected to take part in the Peacock Visual Arts Internship Programme where she worked with and assisted the master printers. At that time she stood out as more focussed and talented than her peers.

Her final degree was visually brilliant and critically engaging and Kirsty is considered to have the potential to become a leader in the field of print-making in the future. After graduation, she won a coveted place at the RCA to study for a Master of Printmaking. She went to the RCA with the clear objective to push her work in a new a challenging direction. This has been realised as she saw her work going in new, exciting and previously unexplored territories.

Kirsty feels that printmaking is an art form which is becoming increasingly marginalised and her ambition is to return to Scotland and invest her printmaking skills into the Scottish art scene. Changes in her family circumstances threatened to put a halt to Kirsty’s exciting career.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award enabled Kirsty to complete her MA in Printmaking.

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I would be delighted to accept your offer of an award. My sincere thanks to trustees for their generous support.

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2011 Awardee: Sandy Smith

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the trustees .... I can continue this fantastic opportunity for creative growth and professional advancement that I worked so hard to open up.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2011
AGE AT AWARD: 27
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

Dunbar-born Sandy Smith graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2005 with a first class degree in sculpture. While still an undergraduate he shone as an exceptionally gifted artist, dedicated, highly motivated and innovative. Sandy is considered to be one of the most exciting, intelligent and committed contemporary artists to emerge through the Glasgow art scene in the last ten years.

After graduation, he spent the next five years participating in over 40 exhibitions across Europe and the USA exploring ideals of melancholic romance, human/artistic striving and exuberant optimism. He has developed a respected profile as one of the important and influential artists of his generation. In 2007 he won a Dewar Arts Award to help fund a solo exhibition in Glasgow.

Sandy is currently a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University where he is pursuing an MFA in Visual Art. Since moving to New York he has worked with the language of attainment to test the veracity of the positive claims of contemporary art and personal development. For further information about Sandy’s work, see www.sandysmith.co.uk.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will enable him to complete his two-year MFA degree.

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I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the trustees .... I can continue this fantastic opportunity for creative growth and professional advancement that I worked so hard to open up.

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2011 Awardee: Stephanie Ward

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for such an honourable award. I am sure this award will help me develop myself as an animator and will allow me to pursue the career I desire.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2011
AGE AT AWARD: 22
ARTFORMS: ,
WEBSITE:https://stephanie-ward.daportfolio.com/
 
 

Biography

Born and brought up in Greenock, Stephanie exhibited a self-portrait in the McLean Museum, Greenock while still at high school. She went on to study digital art at the University of West of Scotland. Her degree show was exhibited in Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Stephanie is aiming for a career as an animator. She had an internship as a comic book inker in Glasgow and, unpaid, for Picasso Pictures in London, both of which inspired her to develop her skills in dynamic figure drawing and character development.

More unpaid work followed as she designed a comic for an independent writer in the USA and then carried out a concept design for a small games company also in the USA.

The hard work paid off and she won a place on the MA in Character Animation course at Central St Martins, London, one of the leading art schools in Europe. She was the only Scot to have gained a place on the course this year.

https://stephsanimationblog.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will help support Stephanie through the first year of her postgraduate studies.

Ariel and Caliban.mov from Stephanie Ward on Vimeo.

Final animation from Stephanie’s studies at Central Saint Martins

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I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for such an honourable award. I am sure this award will help me develop myself as an animator and will allow me to pursue the career I desire.

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2010 Awardee: Alex Boyd

I appreciate the opportunity that I have been given to complete my project ‘Sonnets from Scotland’, and I look forward to sharing my progress with…the trustees in the coming months.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2010
AGE AT AWARD: 25
ARTFORMS: ,
WEBSITE:https://www.alexboyd.co.uk/
 
 

Biography

Born in Germany and now resident in Ayrshire, Alex began his ‘Sonnets of Scotland’ project in 2007. A History of Art graduate from the University of Glasgow, Alex describes his project as a “photographic journey around the coasts and countryside of Scotland” to document the historically significant open spaces and question traditional assumptions and romantic depictions of the landscape. A lone figure appears in each photograph, referencing romantic artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, John Knox and the early work of Hamish Macmillan.

Alex has already exhibited his work in the US, across Scotland, in London and on mainland Europe in over 20 solo and group shows. He was short-listed for a BBC photography award in 2005 and was a finalist in the EU ‘Imagine’ Photographer of the Year Award in 2009.

He took part in Anthony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth project, collaborating with Scottish poet, Edwin Morgan. They presented a unique combination of photography by Boyd and poetry reading by Morgan.

In 2008, Alex exhibited images from the ‘Sonnets from Scotland’ series projected onto Europe’s largest building, the Palace of the Parliament in Romania. He is currently creating new work to be exhibited as large projections in Battersea Power Station in the summer of 2010. For more information about Alex’s work, see www.alexboyd.co.uk

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will enable Alex to finish his ‘Sonnets of Scotland’ project.

Since the Award

Alex has shown some of his ‘Sonnets’ at arts festivals across Europe and was also  finalist in the prestigious Photographic Award Genius Loci, Spirit of Place and Cultural Diversity. He has been offered residencies in Tuscany and Ireland, a PhD place at a top Scottish University and has been teaching at GSA. Alex writes, “my journey in photography has been greatly enhanced through the help of the Dewar Award and [I have been given] opportunities that would not have been possible without [this] help and kind support….for that I am very grateful indeed.”

The Sonnets from Scotland – a short film shot on location in Skye, Glencoe and the Scottish Highlands.

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I appreciate the opportunity that I have been given to complete my project ‘Sonnets from Scotland’, and I look forward to sharing my progress with…the trustees in the coming months.

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2010 Awardee: Chloe Gough

The impact this award will have on my ability to study in Boston is phenomenal, thank you so much.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2010
AGE AT AWARD: 24
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

Originally from Duncanstone, a small village outside Insch in Aberdeenshire, Chloe graduated from the University of Dundee with a degree in fine art and philosophy.

Chloe’s work has been described as delicate, poetic and quietly engaging. One of the top students in her year, Chloe was selected to exhibit in the competitive and prestigious RSA New Contemporary exhibition in 2010. Following the exhibition, she was awarded the David and June Gordon Memorial Trust prize and the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh Purchase prize. Considered to be a hugely talented and original painter, she has exhibited in a number of high-profile galleries.

Chloe moves to Boston for a year to participate in an intensive year of studio art study and practice.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award has enabled Chloe to pursue postgraduate studies in visual art at the School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Since the Award

A day that Chloe will remember for the rest of her life is being invited, as part of the community of artists at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to spend a day life drawing from the Boston Ballet Company during rehearsal. Moreover, she enjoyed access to the archives of the Boston Museum of Fine Art and through that link was invited to be a guest lecturer at a first-year undergraduate class at the Boston College of Art and Design. Chloe writes that she returned to Scotland ‘with a wonderful and newly invigorated work ethic and absolute dedication to my practice.’

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The impact this award will have on my ability to study in Boston is phenomenal, thank you so much.

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2010 Awardee: Kathryn Elkin

I am absolutely delighted that you have considered my application to be worthy of support.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2010
AGE AT AWARD: 27
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

From Belfast, Kathryn has spent nine years in Scotland, first as a visual art student at the Glasgow School of Art and later working and taking an active part in Glasgow’s vibrant cultural scene in both visual arts and music.

In 2008 she curated the successful exhibition ‘Moot Points’ in the Transmission Gallery which is described as a “watershed moment in re-evaluating the activities of the organisation after its twenty-year history”. Kathryn went on to curate an exciting series of talks and presentations by artists at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow. She has shown her own work in Transmission, performed readings at Cove Park and CCA Glasgow and been published in the journal 2HB, Gnomerro (ed. Sarah Tripp) and, most recently, Options With Nostrils.

At the Glasgow International 2010, Kathryn was one of four artists who exhibited at ‘Sym-po-zeum’ in the Mitchell Library as part of “Open Glasgow”. She has been accepted onto the Goldsmith’s College MFA course in Art Writing, which ideally suits the development of her own work as a text-based visual artist.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will enable Kathryn to pursue an MFA on a part-time basis at Goldsmiths.

After a successful first year at Goldsmiths, Kathryn’s award was extended for a second year to enable her to complete an MFA part-time.

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I am absolutely delighted that you have considered my application to be worthy of support.

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2009 Awardee: Ania Winiarska

It is a wonderful opportunity for me to study at the NFTS where I can improve my skills and develop [a] personal voice and style in film-making.

YEAR OF AWARD: 2009
AGE AT AWARD: 27
ARTFORMS: ,
 
 
 

Biography

Polish-born Ania became passionate about film through her initial studies in journalism. Her early fascination with ordinary people’s lives grew into a desire to tell more in-depth human interest stories through the medium of film documentary.

Ania’s first contact with the film-set was behind the scenes as an independent photographer working on, amongst others, the set of ‘Rebus’. She moved into theatre and got involved with the Citizens Community Theatre in Glasgow.

Whilst in Glasgow, Ania made the well-received documentary ‘Shooting Horses’ chronicling the story of a community performance project based on the film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”. This was selected for submission to the Golden Gate Film Festival in San Francisco. She later made ‘Blackout’, a documentary about Glasgow teenagers who performed at the National Theatre in London.

Ania worked as a film-maker for a number of Scottish charities, often for no fee, to help them raise their profile and funds. ‘Passionate’ is a word often used in connection with Ania, and in her work she manages to find engaging and honest stories that touch the hearts of her audience.

Ania won a place at the highly-competitive NFTS, Beaconsfield to study for a Master in Documentary Directing.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will help towards the substantial costs for Ania to take up a place.

Since the Award

Ania has continued to build on her success and skills as a film-maker. She received the Christie Award for out-standing contribution to the NFTS and her film ‘Dylan’ has been screened at numerous international film festivals. ‘Dylan’ won 2nd prize at San Sebastian International Film Festival and was shortlisted for Grierson Awards for best student film. Ania continues to work on documentaries for British TV, including ‘Britain in a Day’ for BBC2.

‘Dylan’ Official Trailer from Ania Winiarska on Vimeo.

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It is a wonderful opportunity for me to study at the NFTS where I can improve my skills and develop [a] personal voice and style in film-making.

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