LONDON.- The National Gallery has announced that Rosalind Nashashibi will be its Artist in Residence for 2020 – the first to be chosen since the launch of its new Modern and Contemporary Programme.

The residency award is a collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society, while the UK Partner Museum for the inaugural residency will be The Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Orkney, which was selected for the exceptional quality of their collections.

Nashashibi, a filmmaker and painter, will begin her residency in September. Over the course of the year, she will work in the National Gallery’s on-site Artist’s Studio, benefitting from the close proximity to the Gallery’s collection, research and teams. The residency will culminate in a publication and display, featuring Nashashibi’s work at the National Gallery in summer 2020.

The position is aimed at an artist in the middle of their career who will benefit from unparalleled access to the Gallery’s collection. Nashashibi was chosen by a jury of artists and curators including the Director of the Pier Arts Centre. An innovation in the award is that it takes into account the responsibilities that an artist may have, so that regardless of circumstance, whoever has been chosen by the jury can be supported throughout the year-long residency. As well as £30,000, an artist in residence may receive a further award based on particular personal or familial responsibilities.

After accepting the position, Rosalind Nashashibi said: “I am very excited to have been invited as Artist in Residence. The National Gallery is of tremendous inspiration to artists from all over the world and I look forward to exploring its collection and history, as well as those of the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney. I am glad that the set-up of the Residency is made for the actual working lives of artists today, enabling both work and the caring for family responsibilities at the same time.”

The partnership between the National Gallery and The Pier Arts Centre allows the artist to respond to one of the greatest collections of paintings in the Western European tradition, as well as an outstanding collection of 20th century British Modernist art including works by William Gear, Barbara Hepworth, Margaret Mellis, Margaret Tait and Alfred Wallis. Nashashibi’s work will also travel to The Pier Arts Centre and – in a pioneering move to enrich regional collections – will be acquired by the Contemporary Art Society for the permanent collection in Orkney.

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, said: “Rosalind Nashashibi is the first artist in our new Artist in Residence programme at the National Gallery. I am delighted we have established a three-way collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Society and the Piers Arts Centre in Orkney and I am much looking forward to welcoming Rosalind to the Gallery.”

A Turner Prize nominee in 2017, Nashashibi has consistently received international critical acclaim for her films which combine the everyday with the fantastical, incorporating cinematic narratives while using a painterly style to capture her observations. An artist of Palestinian and Irish heritage, Nashashibi’s works also reflect a broad internationalism with subjects ranging from police in New York, families in Gaza, and women in Tahiti.