Stroke of Genius

The bar is the latest addition to the City of London’s cultural landscape and already sees a characterful gallery of contemporary art adorning the bar’s walls and the new enterprise that will capture the eyes of the global art industry. Entries for the Waverton Art Prize have been shortlisted by Paint Talk and the final winner chosen by acclaimed English portrait artist and winner of the BP Portrait award, Stuart Pearson Wright.

The shortlisted artists include Seoul-born Jung A Lee with her piece Cloudy Landscape. She said:

“My works deal with the process of capturing and reproducing unconscious potential situations or states such as the unconsciousness, identity, and vitality.”

Robbie Bush, who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, entered his piece entitled Uneighbourly Watch, and said: “My recent work straddles the use of research, daydreams, observation, and pictorial Reconstruction. My structural but free-flowing drawings, paintings and animations take as their starting point sprawling cities built on monumental panoramas – both improvised and real.”

Arab artist Nada Elkalaawy, from Egypt, is interested in representation and the creation of stories within subjects through painting them.

“My objective is to defy any definitive reading or understanding in the narrative and instead use painting as a site where knowledge and consciousness are in continuous motion,” she said. Meanwhile, London-born India Nielsen works across a variety of media, but her method is rooted in painting.

“When I build up imagery in my paintings it feels like I’m constructing something that is mimicking my own mental architecture more than just thinking about it as an image,” she said.

The initiative is also another way to celebrate Boisdale’s “deep-rooted history in supporting the arts”. “We’re incredibly proud to create such a well-funded new initiative, with a hugelysupportive partner in Waverton,” said Boisdale.

Judge Stuart Pearson Wright said: “I am delighted to judge the inaugural year of the Waverton Art Prize and to discover some amazing talent from around the world.

“Now, more so than ever, the arts play such an important role in the notions of unity through expression and I’m proud to be part of an initiative that gives aspiring artists a brilliant platform to showcase their vision.”