News • April 22, 2020

inal year BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting student, Sarah Gilman, has had her painting, Terninger I, selected for inclusion in the New Light Prize Exhibition 2017.

New Light, a charity which celebrates and promotes Northern Art, supports emerging artists like Sarah. They offer some of the region’s best awards and opportunities, including their showcase New Light Prize Exhibition which is fast becoming one of the UK’s largest and most talked about open art exhibitions.

This year, the annual competition, New Light received over 2,200 entries, from which nearly 90 pieces were selected. The artwork has been created by 72 talented artists, all of whom were born, live, or have studied in the North of England. The selected work will be exhibited in four galleries across the UK – The Bowes Museum, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Bankside Gallery and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, running from this November until early 2019.

Sarah, originally from Crewe in Cheshire, embarked on her painting journey in 2014 by completing the Access to Higher Education course in Art and Design at St Helens College. Sarah said, “It was following my Access to HE course that I decided to enrol at University Centre St Helens as they offered a degree which was an ideal fit for my interest in paint. Throughout my time at University Centre St Helens, I really valued the guidance that I have received from my lecturers. I consider myself fortunate to be surrounded by this support.”

Sarah’s practice, firmly rooted in drawing and painting, presents contemporary iterations of the still-life genre. Underpinning her approach to painting is a rigorous and protracted scrutiny of her chosen subject matter, in this case, the everyday and overlooked objects that so often escape our attention. Sarah rescues these objects from disregard through the act of painting, the results of which elevate the object’s value and re-presents it to the eye.

Additional to the New Light Prize Exhibition, Sarah’s more recent exhibitions include: Small Worlds, PS Mirabel, Manchester (2017); Air Gallery, Altrincham (2017); Bankley Gallery Open, Manchester (2017) and she will also be exhibiting in the forthcoming Open at Second Floor Studios, London, in December this year.

To find out more about the exhibition visit: www.newlight-art.org.uk. For more information on studying Fine Art Painting at University Centre St Helens, please visit our course information page.

Article sourced from University Centre St Helens. New Light shines on Emerging Artist. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.sthelens.ac.uk/news-ucsh/2103-new-light-shines-on-emerging-artist