We are please once more to be able to offer a prize at the annual Leicester Open at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery.
The John E. Wright Prize aims to offer the selected winning artist the opportunity use our services to further their work and promote their practice. We try to recognise an artist that is using contemporary printing processes in an original or innovative way. This can cover a wide range of styles and it’s always an interesting process trying to make a selection.
This years selected winner is Robert Youngson who has produced digital prints on aluminium, but very much in a classic landscape style.
Robert provided the following information about his work.
“A little about how I became an contemporary Romantic Landscape Artist.
Some years past now I started getting disheartened by the work that I was producing. Work, which was more cognitive / conceptual and for me lacking in a really homed skill, or, infact lacking in just beauty. Beauty is for me is an essential element in the enjoyment of art and is also a key in making the viewer interested in what your work has to say.
So, I started looking back at art history as artists do, and then this is where I discovered the Northern Romantic Tradition of painting (17thto 19th century) i.e. Caspar David Friedrich and Johan Christian Dahl. This for me seemed the beginning of what we now call ”Modern Art” .
The Romantics portrayed the landscape painting in an entirely new manner, with Friedrich’s key innovation. He sought not just to explore the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the classic conception, but rather to examine an instant of sublimty in with the spiritual self through the contemplation of nature. Friedrich was instrumental in transforming landscape in art from a backdrop subordinated to human drama to a self-contained emotive subject. So this is where I started my ambition, with the landscape and the sublime. Using some of the motifs of the Romaics Landscape painters like expansive skies, rainbows, mist, ruins, and churches, and in some cases the updating of the motifs (removal of the lone figure) and replacing it with you the viewer becoming the solitude figure in landscape. This combined with my innovative use of technology both in the art work and the final print out come.
I feel I have achieved a contemporary forum for my work to be shown.
More writing about my work can be found on my tumblr blog robertyoungson.tumblr.com ”
Shown above is one of Roberts pieces ‘Landscape 2’ – Digital Print on Aluminium, which is currently on display at Open25.
We have been fortunate to work with a number of artists exhibiting at many different stages of their careers and the process is always mutually beneficial, allowing us to further develop our technical capabilities into creative applications. To discuss projects with us please visit our website or email sales@johnewright.com