Winner of Secret Art Prize announced!
Curious Duke Gallery are very proud to announce Mohammed Sami as the winner of Secret Art Prize 2014! Having been launched in February of this year, and with over 130 applicants, CDG have found their latest intake of artists: we can't wait to work with you!
Eleni Duke, founder of Curious Duke Gallery, launched the inaugural Secret Art Prize with the view to bring her love of surreal and street art together, to give this niche the support and attention it deserves from the London gallery scene. Duke explains that she wished to “fine art with the current street art trend that we are currently experiencing and put the physical piece of art onto the streets, one that is removable and can then be put into a home or gallery context, and really bridge the gap between fine art and street art.” Duke wanted to launch an art prize that differed from the trope on offer, she wanted to celebrate the strange and the beautiful, the urban and undiscovered secret talents.
CDG will be awarding winner Mohammed Sami with not only the mantel of the first winner of Secret Art Prize, but ï¿¡500 cash, gallery representation from CDG, one year Be Smart About Art membership, four x one hour mentoring sessions with BSAA founder and art world expert Susan Mumford, 8ft commission from the WXSP, with materials supplied by Cowling and Wilcox, with a group show this September at CDG with the nine runners up listed below.
Secret Art Prize winner Mohammed Sami embodies all of this. His bright colours, and floating perspective of many of his works displaces both the subject and viewer as you enter a new floating land. However, Sami is more than his style. The painter uses his artistic practice to discuss his experience of growing up in Iraq, and managing the Iraqi art archive of the Ministry of Culture. Sami explains his works as “freedom of the expression, to the chosen subjects that I engage with my own style, I am trying to contribute a transformation of Graffiti from the wall onto the Canvas.”
CDG will be awarding winner Mohammed Sami with not only the mantel of the first winner of Secret Art Prize, but ï¿¡500 cash, gallery representation from CDG, one year Be Smart About Art membership, four x one hour mentoring sessions with BSAA founder and art world expert Susan Mumford, 8ft commission from the WXSP, with materials supplied by Cowling and Wilcox, with a group show this September at CDG with the nine runners up listed below.
Together the judging panel made up of: BBC 6 radio representer Mary-Anne Hobbs, Susan Mumford, art critic Tabish Khan, WXSP organiser and artist Teddy Baden, I Know What I Like founder Sabina Andron, and Barbican Centre's Daniela Feta whittled the 130 applicants to 10. The runners up of Secret Art Prize 2014 are:
Aidan Myers
Blandine Bardeau
Karolina Zglobicka
Cherelle Sappleton
Johnathan Reiner
Martha Zmpounou
Novemto
Olivia Yu
Rosanna Dean
Congratulations!