The SCAF Emerging Artist Award has been created to acknowledge up and coming artists of all ages who are living in the Yorkshire region. The intent of the award is to bring recognition and awareness to outstanding visual artists in the region who are at the early stages of their career or who have not yet established a reputation as an artist amongst art curators, buyers and critics.
/ This years subject:
As you are reading the words that make up this paragraph, you are generously donating some of your time to SCAF. Time has a value to us, it is limited, it passes, and we can never regain the time that we have spent. We measure the passing of time, keeping diaries, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, marking the changes of the seasons and the phases of the moon. Many of us run our lives constantly watching the clock, filling our calendars with time critical appointments and events planned for the future, fearing being late or feeling within us that we never have enough time.
Everything in the earthly physical realm is subject to change with the passage of time including the planet we inhabit, which had a beginning and will eventually die over a time course that is vastly different from that of a human life or a snowflake. Art has the power to transcend time. Artists throughout history have captured fleeting moments in time, represented events, people, places, and the nature of time itself in a myriad of different media and representative forms. What does TIME mean to you as an artist? How would you choose to represent this subject in your own piece of art? The subject is yours to ponder and interpret in your own unique way.
/ Final Awards & Exhibition
There will be 10 awards overall with the winning artist receiving £1250, 2nd £500, 3rd £250 and 7 further awards of £100 each to the remaining shortlisted artists. The awards will be presented to the recipients at the opening of the SCAF Emerging Artist Award Exhibition to be held at SCAF, The Fire House, (Former North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue), Thurston Road, Northallerton, DL6 2NA.
/ Eligibility for Artists & Artworks
There is no restriction on the artist regarding training or nationality.
The artist must be aged 16 or over.
You must be living within the Yorkshire region at the time of entry.
All types of art, except for the performing arts, sound and video, are accepted for this competition
The artist must not have exclusive representation, to enter this art competition.
Artwork size must be less than 100cm x 100cm for artworks to be hung on the wall including frame, and less than 100cm cubed for sculptures. If you are unsure, please contact us on 01423 314 103.
/ Timetable
The award consists of two stages.
Proposal for completed artwork and supporting images should be entered online using the link on this page. Deadline for entries is 11:59pm 12th January 2025. Shortlisted entries will be announced on 16th February 2025, following which the successful entrants will be invited to produce and submit their completed original artworks based upon their successful proposal by 28th June 2025.
Judging will take place and the winners announced on 24th July 2025.
The ten final artworks will then be exhibited thereafter throughout the year.
/ Key Dates
12th October 2024
Open of submissions
12th January 2025 11.59pm
Close of submissions
15th Jan - 15th Feb 2025
Judge of submissions
16th February 2025
Finalists notified
28th June 2025
Final artwork submissions delivered to SCAF
24th July 2025
Final judging and presentation evening
/ Enter the 2025 Award
/ 2023's AWARD
/ Judging Panel
Dr Sue Armstrong
MA VetMB VetMFHom CertIAVH MRCVS RsHom
Artistic Director & Trustee of SCAF
Sue Armstrong is the Founder of the Scott Creative Arts Foundation and the current Artistic Director. Sue was a close friend of Michael and Eileen Scott and is dedicated to realising their wishes through the work of the Foundation. Providing support and encouragement to emerging artists was a major priority for the Scott’s and to be holding the fourth SCAF emerging artist award is a testament to her commitment to SCAF. Sue, like the Scotts is a passionate believer in the value of the synergistic relationship between arts and science.
Photo by Damian Bramley - DJB Photography
Louise Ventris
SCAF Emerging Artist Award 2024 Winner
Louise is a Yorkshire-based artist, who explores her creativity through painting, immersing herself in the exploration of urban townscapes. 2024 has been an exciting year for Louise, she had her first solo show at the Mercer Gallery in Harrogate and was awarded the SCAF Emerging Artist Award for her work 'Threads through time, 13 portraits.’
Louise works intuitively with oil paint and has exhibited her work in various open and group exhibitions, including Contemporary Six ‘Coalescence’, Mercer Open, Leeds Summer Show, and the Old Parcels Office in Scarborough. Her work was selected for the group show ‘Prized 2023’ She has recently become an associate member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.
Jess Wallace
Artist/Sculptor
Jess rode as a professional National Hunt jockey for six years and on retirement from race riding, attended the Byam Shaw School of Art in London, graduating with distinction. After working with the Natural History Museum making precision drawings, Jess left London for Yorkshire, followed by a small hill farm in West Wales, living with various rescue animals who are the genesis of her work. This has become an intimate record of the distilled moments of this shared existence. Jess finds that working rapidly in very wet clay, from life and memory, allowing the material to play a crucial part in the process, reveals unexpected truths, which are finally cast in bronze.
Debbie Loane
Artist
Debbie Loane trained at Bretton Hall College, Leeds University graduating in 1995 with a BA (hons)1st class in painting. Debbie regularly runs artists workshops in Yorkshire and Scotland and curates exhibitions from her gallery base at Lund Gallery, North Yorkshire.
Recent projects include Artist in Residence on the Cleveland Way National Trail 2019 -2020 and Rahoy Reserve Artist Residency, Sound of Mull 2022 – 2023.
The landscape of the North York Moors and the wild expanses of the north are the inspiration for Debbie’s work.