Congratulations to the SCAF Emerging Artist Award Winner 2023 Jess Kidd!
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 and who have not yet established a reputation as an artist amongst art curators, buyers, critics and the general public.
/ This years subject:
The theme for the SCAF Emerging Artist Award 2023 is LIGHT. As we emerge from the Covid pandemic, surrounded by the rhetoric of threatened climate crisis, food shortages, rising prices and ever increasing social pressures, it is hard to feel lightness of spirit or connect with joy and creativity in our lives . Exploring the theme of light and finding your own way of interpreting and expressing 'light' will offer a healthy counterbalance to the heaviness and darkness often experienced in these times. The visual arts have a long history of using light both as a subject and a tool to create emotion and drama, or simply to lead the eye to a specific aspect of composition. You may choose to represent light within your work, or play with light illuminating your piece or even work with light itself, the choice is yours.
/ The Finalists
/ Award exhibition
/ Opening Times
/ Exhibition Catalogue
/ Exhibition Price List
/ 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
Jane Young
Curator of SCAF
Jane has had the privilege to be a part of SCAF as the Gallery Curator since 2016, having met Michael Scott on a couple of occasions he gave her the inspiration and energy to work with the SCAF team to help create a Foundation that she hopes both he and Eileen would be proud of. Jane has a longterm passion for arts, wellbeing and through this connection continues to find ways to encourage and promote art and artists in the creative process.
Cynthia Valianti Corbett
Director/ Curator of Cynthia Corbett Gallery & Young Masters Art Prize
Cynthia Valianti Corbett (b, Marlborough, MA, USA) holds a BA (Magna Cum Laude) in Political Science from UMASS Amherst and a MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She was the recipient of the 2020 Tufts University Alumni Award with a Career Service Citation in recognition of her achievements and contribution to the international art world. She trained as an art historian at Christie’s Education before establishing her gallery in 2004. Prior to this, she had a high-profile career as an international economist specialising in emerging markets, based in New York and London.
Cynthia launched the Young Masters Art Prize in 2009, a unique not-for-profit initiative which celebrates artistic skill and innovation with awareness of the art from the past. The Young Masters Ceramics Prize was created in 2014 and 2017 saw the addition of the Young Masters Emerging Women Artist Award. She curated the post-pandemic art project, Focus on the Female in London during the summer 2021. This platform was designed to support women artists at a critical moment in art history. Most recently Cynthia co-curated with Daisy McMullan the 2022/23 Young Masters Exhibition at The Exhibitionist and Gainsborough Hotels in collaboration with Vestalia Chilton to raise funds for the Young Masters Art Prize 6th edition planned for 2023.
Jane Claire Wilson
Textile and community artist
2022 SCAF Emerging Artist Winner
Jane creates textile sculptures and 2D artwork to share stories about places and people. Her work is in response to walking in new places, talking with local community members and research into the social and political context of the place.
Jane recently graduated from Leeds Arts University with an MA in Creative Practice researching How creating a sense of place in a creative practice engages audiences and makers in social, political and global discussions.
Jane worked as an Early Years Teacher and Advisor; always bringing creativity to the classroom. When Jane decided to develop her own creative practice, she attended an Access to Art and Design Course at York College. This positive experience led to a change of direction into a new career in the Arts.
Since graduating Jane has exhibited in local galleries and pop up shops. Jane is a member of York Textile Artists and North Yorkshire Open Studios. In 2022 Jane won the SCAF Emerging Artist Award. Jane works as a community based artist; delivering workshops throughout North Yorkshire. Jane is currently researching the theme of belonging to a place; a sense of the familiar and unfamiliar. She is spending time exploring the collections of Michael and Eileen Scott at the SCAF studios as inspiration for new work.
Jill Tattersall
Mixed media artist
Three years ago Jill and her studio, The Wolf at the Door, moved from Brighton to York. She hasn’t stopped making art since childhood, but originally earned her living as an academic specialising in medieval French literature with a particular interest in old maps and travel accounts. Later she took courses in art, design and ceramics at her local college; her first solo exhibition soon followed.
She’s had many exhibitions and carried out numerous projects and commissions, with work in collections from Peru (and even Rwanda) to Tasmania. Before the move to York (followed by lockdown), recent events included Art Below, Mayfair; Affordable Art Fair, Battersea; Emerging Women Artists, Hampstead (finalist); Espacio Gallery, Shoreditch; Flux Exhibition, Chelsea; Artists’ Open House, Brighton; Nigel Rose Gallery, Brighton.
Since moving north she’s shown work in the Kunsthuis Gallery, Crayke, Woodend (Scarborough, Anne Bronte 200), and the Ferens Gallery, Hull; also Sheffield, Knaresborough and Doncaster. In York: Pyramid, the Angel on the Green, the Village and Blossom St Galleries. Her large Night Sky 1066 (made for her solo exhibition in Battle to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings) was the centrepiece of the first Kielder Dark Skies Observatory art show. Other recent York venues for solo exhibitions include CityScreen and the Marriott Hotel.
She’s also taken part in York Open Studios since 2019, #artistsupportpledge, and continues to show work in the Brighton Festival. Recent collaborative projects include the global Telephone and the Grapevine projects. She’s a founding member of Westside Artists, York, who collaborate on projects and art events in Yorkshire.