The Brownlee Brothers win £16,000 of prizes at New Contemporaries 2014

Published On Mon 17 Feb 2014 by Grant Hill

Fraser and Calum Brownlee, who graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) last year, have been named as the inaugural winners of the £14,000 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary.

The brothers received the award at the opening ceremony of the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh at the weekend. The award is made by the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation, custodians of the established Fleming Collection in London.

The Brownlees also won the RSA Sir William Gillies Bequest Award, worth £2,000, for their attention-grabbing work exploring the themes of Brotherhood, Cultism, Dundee and Youth, which was first exhibited at the DJCAD Degree Show last May.

Fraser and Calum are among the fifteen graduate artists from DJCAD, part of the University of Dundee, exhibiting at New Contemporaries, regarded as the most important initiative for Scottish creative talent each year.

The Fleming-Wyfold Bursary will see the brothers receive an initial £10,000 plus £4,000 to purchase materials and equipment to support their practice over the next year. They will also receive mentoring over the next year, which will culminate in work they produce being purchased for the Fleming Collection.

Fraser, who last year won a £2,000 RSA John Kinross Scholarship to carry out research and develop his practice in Florence, said, 'For newly graduated artists like Calum and myself this is just about the biggest boost possible.

'We've had all these crazy ideas in our sketch books that haven't been possible due to financial constraints but what these two very generous awards mean is that there won't be any limits placed on our practice because of money. That's really exciting for us and we're already talking about all the things that are possible now, because I think we'd pushed our work as far as we could without new funding.

'Having the chance to exhibit in London is also really exciting and lets us showcase out work to a whole new set of influential people.'

Set up in 2009, RSA New Contemporaries is an annual exhibition of selected graduates from Scotland's art and architecture schools. The carefully curated exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see the best of Scotland's emerging talent under one roof with the substantial body of new work including painting, sculpture, film making, photography, printmaking, architecture, performance and installation.

New Contemporaries reflects the RSA's commitment to supporting and presenting the best contemporary work in Scotland. The RSA team works closely with the artists and architects towards developing a lasting relationship in the lead up to the exhibition and beyond.

More than £25,000 worth of monetary prizes are up for grabs, along with residency, studio and purchase prizes. Other DJCAD winners this year are:

  • Matthew Wilson (Walter Scott Global Investment Award - £2,000)
  • Dorian Braun and Jack Paton (Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy Award - £1,000)
  • Jonny Lyons (RSA Adam Bruce Thomson Award - £150)
  • Morgan Cahn (RSA Chalmers Bursary - £150 - and The Smart Gallery Exhibition Award)
  • Jonathan Douglas (RSA Stuart Prize - £150)
  • Gabriele Jogelaite (RSA Chalmers-Jervise Prize - £150 - and Edinburgh Printmakers Award)
  • Matthew Wilson (Art in Healthcare Purchase Prize)
  • Jennifer Clews (Peacock Visual Arts Award for Moving Image)

Congratulating Fraser and Calum on their award, Rachel Campbell-Johnston, art critic with The Times and a member of the Fleming-Wyfold Bursary selection panel, said, 'RSA New Contemporaries runs the gamut of pretty much every game you can play with art. It muddles your eyes and your head about, so it was challenging to determine a winner.

'In the end we went for something that was visually strong, wittily teasing but with historical resonance. We feel that this pair of sibling artists has real potential to develop their ambitions with the support of the bursary.'

As part of the partnership with the RSA, the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation will stage the inaugural event 'New Scottish Artists: a Royal Scottish Academy exhibition supported by the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation' at the Fleming Collection in Mayfair, London, from 24th March - 31st May . This newly-conceived exhibition will bring selected works from New Contemporaries to London for the first time.

New Contemporaries will be open at the RSA, The Mound, Edinburgh, from 15th February to 12th March. Admission costs £4/£2. More information is available at royalscottishacademy.org/pages/exhibition_frame.asp?id=419.

 

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