DJCAD graduate wins £14,000 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary
Published On Wed 18 Mar 2015 by Grant Hill
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) graduate Edward Humphrey’s burgeoning career has been handed a massive boost after being named as the winner of the £14,000 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary.
Edward was announced as the second recipient of the annual Fleming-Wyfold Bursary at the opening ceremony of this year’s Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) New Contemporaries exhibition. He will receive a bursary of £10,000, plus £4,000 production costs for the next year. His winning video installation Another Fiction is on display at New Contemporaries until 8th April, alongside works by other graduates from Scotland’s art and architecture schools.
A key aspect of the Fleming-Wyfold Bursary is a mentoring scheme which will see established curator Susanna Beaumont work with Edward for a year, offering guidance and support to help further his career. Edward also won the £400 RSA Art Prize.
He said, “These accolades are a fantastic pat on the back, and they come with the brilliant expectation of new work. I feel very fortunate and grateful to be the recipient, especially considering how excellent the RSA exhibition is, and I owe a good deal of that fortune to the support, inspiration and practical help I had, and still have from DJCAD tutors and fellow students.
“It is an unusual confidence boost to have at the beginning of a post-university project, and I'm looking forward to a continuing dialogue with Susanna, and everyone at Fleming-Wyford.”
Edward’s practice looks at ideas of perception, belief, and memory, often using spoken word elements to link disparate ideas and imagery. The process usually begins with the selection and interpretation of words that are then re-contextualised using a sound environment or visual accompaniment. Interested in the tendency to see things from a number of different perspectives, he opens up the middle ground of memory and perception as a recurring theme in both his thinking and his work.
The winner was decided by a prestigious selection panel including Phil Long, Director of the V&A Museum of Design, Dundee, Scottish visual arts journalist Griselda Murray Brown, Graham Fagen, artist and representative for Scotland + Venice 2015 at the 56th Venice Biennale, David Benson, Trustee of the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation and Selina Skipwith, art consultant and former Director of the Fleming Collection.
Phil Long said, “After a long and challenging discussion the judges selected Edward Humphrey’s dual video, we were struck by its beauty and intellectual curiosity.”
As part of the successful collaboration with the Royal Scottish Academy, the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation will bring a selection of the most promising works to London. New Scottish Artists: a Royal Scottish Academy exhibition supported by the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation will be on display at the Fleming Collection from 12th May to 24th June.
The exhibition offers an opportunity to see the best of Scotland’s emerging talent under one roof, providing a critical platform for new graduates. This year’s exhibition will feature the work of the 2015 winner Edward Humphrey and the winners of the 2014 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary, Calum and Fraser Brownlee, who also studied at DJCAD.
Other DJCAD winners at this year’s New Contemporaries are Ellis O’Connor (RSA Landscape Award), Samantha Wilson (Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy Award), Emma Jolly (Peacock Visusal Arts Award for Moving Image), Moira Watson (Edinburgh Printmakers Award) and Craig Wright (Glasgow Print Studio Award).
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