Kathryn Maple is one of five shortlisted artists (each awarded £2,500) in contention for the first prize of £25,000, which will be announced on 4 March. The winner will join an elite list of previous artists to have taken the prize, including David Hockney (1967), Lisa Milroy (1989), Peter Doig (1993), Keith Coventry (2010) and Rose Wylie (2014). Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is patron of the award.
Maple's 2020 painting The Common – which she described as a ‘meeting place, an intersection, people seemingly aware of each other, but minds elsewhere – all sharing an open space' - was shortlisted from 67 paintings (chosen from around 3,000 submissions) now on show at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery until 27 June. A virtual tour of the exhibition is available. The winning painting will be acquired by the gallery to join its world-class collection, while the artist will also have a future solo display.
Following her shortlisting, Kathryn said: “I originally applied for the Painting BA at Brighton, but somehow got side tracked and ended up doing Printmaking. Three years of experimenting with all the different processes meant I could take a really investigative approach and explore the possibilities of combining different processes and techniques.