LONDON.- Jerwood Visual Arts and Drawing Projects UK announced that Karolina Glusiec has been awarded the First Prize of £8,000 for her hand-drawn animation, Velocity, in the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012. Her winning work, along with that of the 74 short-listed artists is being shown at JVA at Jerwood Space, London from 12 September – 28 October 2012, and then tour to venues across the UK, including the new Jerwood Gallery, Hastings; The Gallery, The Arts University College at Bournemouth; and mac, Birmingham.

The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012 is the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK; which this year sees the total prize fund increase by over 50%, from £11,000 to £17,000. The 2012 exhibition explores and celebrates the diversity, excellence and range of current drawing practice in the UK. Professor Anita Taylor, Director and Co-Founder of the Prize says:

‘Since 1994, the Jerwood Drawing Prize project has aimed to affirm the value of drawing by providing an open forum to evaluate and disseminate current drawing and its practices, and to gain knowledge and understanding about the field through the artists currently making work within the discipline.

Through the selection process panelists are encouraged to collectively establish criteria and to consider the nature and boundaries of drawing as a field. Continual refinement takes place as literally thousands of drawings are laid out for the selectors to see. Consequently, a dialogue arises between them about what is of value in drawing as a field, and in the drawings presented, as they debate what makes a drawing stand out for inclusion in their show.’

Almost 3,000 entries were submitted this year for consideration by the distinguished panel of selectors: Stephen Coppel, Curator of the Modern Collection, Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum; Kate Macfarlane, Co-Director of Drawing Room, London; and Lisa Milroy, Artist and Head of Graduate Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. The shortlist includes established artists as well as relative newcomers and students fresh from art college.

First Prize winner Karolina Glusiec, who was born in Lublin, Poland and is now based in London, has only this year graduated from the Royal College of Art where she studied MA Animation. The prize is awarded for her hand-drawn animation, Velocity. She comments: ‘For me drawing is the most sincere way of communication, and the most honest representation of one's thoughts and feelings.’

The Second Prize of £5,000 was awarded to Bada Song. Born in South Korea and now based in London, she studied BA Sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London (1999-2002) and has since exhibited in numerous shows. Ta - iL 28 is one of two works selected for exhibition. The two drawings, she explains, are ‘based on traditional Korean roof tiles and use graphite - a material reminiscent of their dark, rough ceramic. Such tiles are disappearing from rapidly modernising life and architecture. My drawings disrupt the familiarity of their forms, bringing into question what the viewer encounters as surface, depth and shape. These works allow a cultural enquiry to develop into a more formal investigation involving perception, perspective and illusion. The titles of the works refer to the English word ‘tile’ pronounced as it has been adopted in Korean.’

Two Student Awards of £2,000 each went to Katie Aggett and Min Kim. Katie Aggett has recently completed a Fine Art Sculpture MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Her ink drawings, entitled N1C 4TB, W10 5UU, ‘explore structuring systems of urban space, through the changing events that happen within them.’ The drawings map from a central point the changes in space and time from different areas of London and, therefore, have been titled after specific postcodes.

Based in London, Min Kim, our second student prize-winner was born in South Korea, and is also graduating this year from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where she studied MFA Painting. Her work, Waiting, consists of approximately 830 pieces of paper displayed in a stack, each of which bears a drawing of a black balloon in charcoal.

The selectors have also awarded a Special Commendation to London based artist, Jane Dixon for her drawing, Platform, part of an ongoing series inspired by architectural models.