SCAF Emerging Artists 2020/21 Exhibition Catalogue

2020/21 AWARD
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Exploring the
Subject of Climate
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award

Scott Creative Arts Foundation

2020/21 AWARD
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Exploring the
Subject of Climate

Introduction
The SCAF Emerging Artist Award was
created to acknowledge up and coming
artists of all ages who are living in the
Yorkshire region.
The intent of the award is to bring recognition
and awareness to outstanding visual artists in
the region who are at the early stages of their
career and who have not yet established a
reputation as an artist amongst art curators,
buyers, critics and the general public.
The creation of the award was one of the
most emphatic wishes of the Foundations
benefactors, Michael and Eileen Scott, and
we are delighted to exhibit the submissions
from our 2020 finalists. The proposals from
the artists have been through three rounds
of judging to get to the final selection and we
would like to thank everyone who put in an
application. Please never give up.
We are grateful to our finalists and judges for
their patience. The presentation of the award
has been postponed three times due to the
Covid pandemic and has run into 2021.
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Climate
For this year's award the subject for the
submitted pieces and our current exhibition is
CLIMATE
The choice of this theme continues to honour
the Scott’s passion which was to observe,
discuss, express and share and be aware of the
ever changing surroundings whether it be the
environment, politics, atmosphere and habitat.
Submitting artists could interpret the theme in
whatever way they felt appropriate.
Congratulations from all at SCAF to our
talented finalists.
The 2020 Emerging Artists Finalists
Alfie Fox
Alysia Webster
Barbara Hellowell
Maggie Thompson
Ros Walker
Russell Hughes
Sandra Storey
Sophie Simpson
Teddi Coutts
Walter Lewis
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award

Judging Panel
Dr Sue Armstrong
Artistic Director & Trustee of SCAF
Sue Armstrong is the Founder of the Scott Creative Arts
Foundation and the current Artistic Director. Sue was a close
friend of Michael and Eileen Scott and is dedicated to realising
their wishes through the work of the Foundation. Providing
support and encouragement to emerging artists was a major
priority for the Scott’s and Sue is delighted to see the SCAF
Award come to fruition. Sue Armstrong is the Founder of the
Scott Creative Arts Foundation and the current Artistic Director.
Jane Young
Curator of SCAF
Jane has had the privilege to be apart of SCAF as the Gallery
Curator since 2016, having met Michael Scott on a couple of
occasions he gave her the inspiration and energy to work with
the SCAF team to help create a Foundation that she hopes
both he and Eileen would be proud of. Jane has a longterm
passion for arts, wellbeing and through this connection
continues to find ways to encourage and promote art and
artists in the creative process.
Clare Phelan
Winner of the Scott Creative Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award 2019
Following a twenty year career as an Art Psychotherapist in the
NHS, Clare returned to education completing a Visual Arts MA
(distinction) from Bradford College in 2014. After a further year
as Artist in Residence, she took part in the Complete Printmaker
Programme run by Hot Bed Press in Salford. Since 2017 Clare
has been a full time Artist/Printmaker working from her studio in
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, and at Hot Bed Press a community print
workshop in Salford. Winner of the inaugural Scott Creative Arts
Foundation Emerging Artist Award 2019, Clare was also shortlisted
for the Flourish Award for Excellence in Printmaking 2017 and the
London Contemporary Art Prize 2019.
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Eloise Ross
Art & Design Project Officer at York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation
Trust and Freelance Photographer
Eloise Ross is an Art & Design Project Officer at York Teaching
Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and a Freelance Photographer,
with a BA Hons in Fine Art. Eloise particularly enjoys working
on collaborative and community-based arts events and social
projects, which she truly believes have the power to enhance
people's experience of the arts. Her role within the hospitals
involves engaging patients, visitors and staff in a creative way to
help improve their stay, visit and place of work through exhibitions,
music, participation and enhancements of the
hospital environment.
Jonny Exon
Manager of Langwith College at the University of York
Jonny has worked in the higher education and charity sectors for
over a decade, and has been the Manager of Langwith College
at the University of York for the last 6 years. He has a huge
passion for photography, and gained his masters in Photography
from the European Institute of Design in 2018. The Scotts had a
close personal connection to Langwith College, and Jonny has
worked closely with staff and students to continue their aim
of encouraging students of all ability to express themselves
creatively through art. This has involved the establishment of the
Scott Award Committee, a student-led group who run regular art
workshops, exhibitions and an annual arts competition -
"the Scott Award”.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award

Technology has broken many barriers for us
with disabilities and allows communication
through many methods.
Alfie Fox
The Freedom to Speak 2020
Mixed Media
67cm x 98cm
My work is based on a grid that is found
on communication devices like the one I
use. Stephen Hawking said ''I have to speak
with a computer but in my mind I am free''
I changed it to ''Some of us may speak with
pictures, our hands or a computer but in
our minds we are free'' I recorded this using
my 'computer voice' and printed out the
voice pattern using recording software and
transferred it to run through my piece.
www.instagram.com/alfjfox
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Alysia Webster
Uplift
Oil on Canvas
84cm x 84cm
I am a visual Artist based in Leeds, and
I paint to recreate the feeling of being
immersed in the landscape, letting
experiences from different places
blend and collide; using gestural marks
and atmospheric washes to mirror the
physicality of the mountains, the geology
of the rock, and the dynamics of the
landscape. For the ‘Climate’ project I
wanted to explore the contrast between
my own immediate experience of the local
climate whilst hiking in the Peak District,
and the evidence for the long-term effects
of the changing climate observed in the
geology.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award
www.alysiawebster.com

Barbara Hellowell
The Crack
Wire Sculpture
97cm x 29cm x 25cm
In 2007 I started a new life. Graduating
from Leeds University with a First-class
honours degree in Contemporary Art
Practice. This was followed by a bursary
at Ironbridge open air museum of steel
sculpture. Currently I am Artist in Residence
at Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield.
THE CRACK
I am increasingly concerned by how the
Earth is being destroyed by human activity.
THE CRACK depicts this through the
representation of the destruction of a tree.
The tree is out of balance. The tipping point
has been reached; the point of no return.
The recycled wire of the piece highlights
the danger.
www.barbarahellowell.co.uk
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Maggie, a printmaker from Huddersfield,
has a BA in Creative Practice, and MA in
Fine Art from Manchester School of Art.
Maggie Thompson
Security Blanket
Etched Metal and Printing Ink
95cm x 82.5cm
Her work references this year’s lockdown
with the pandemic described in numbers
as we were stayed within our homes and
made use of what we had around us. The
houses, visible due to the etched negative
space reference social media ‘home’ icons
while the can lids refer to containment and
the importance that food assumed in our
lives. The metal armour of the plates is in
stark contrast to the delicate and fragile
looking print which each makes.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award
www.instagram.com/maggiethompsonprintmaker

Ros Walker
Burning World
Ceramic and Mixed Media
Approx. 50cm Diameter
I live and work in North Yorkshire. Having
previously worked in stained glass
and mixed media painting, I recently
discovered ceramics which has opened
a whole new world of Creativity for
me. I am experimenting with local clay,
adding different materials, and using
ancient methods of firing which I have
combined in my piece Burning World, I
was especially affected by the horrific bush
fires in Australia, which I believe have been
exacerbated by global warming. My work
shows fractured, blackened world left by
the fire, and a bleak future if we do not
take action.
www.roswalker.com
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Russell left his previous career in 2015 to
study the Access Art course at York College
followed by an MA in Creative Practice
at Leeds Arts University. He works in
printmaking and 3D. His work is expressed
in strong elements of colour and pattern.
Russell Hughes
“4,000 Miles”
Mixed media collage
Collagraph prints, acrylic,
pumice gel on plywood
75cm x 75cm x 5cm
Russell is inspired by the public and private
spaces in which we live our lives. Recent
work has explored connections between
local spaces and global issues such as
climate change, particularly the landscape
of car showrooms and road networks
ringing our towns and cities, visually
distinctive signifiers of fossil fuel use.
“4,000 Miles” specifically responds to
the “£27bn of tarmac” investment in road
building announced in this year’s budget in
view of our net-zero emissions target.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award
www.russellhughesart.co.uk

A Creative Practice M.A and Artist
Residency at Whitby Museum in 2015
galvanised a love of printmaking and
fascination with traces of the past found
in landscape and objects.
Sandra Storey
Horcum World – The Fall 1
Carborundum and mixed media
44cm x 98cm
Horcum World - The Fall 1 reflects on the
fragility of our planet, the part we play
in this and the enduring impact of the
landscape on our hearts and minds. The
Hole of Horcum, North Yorkshire is at the
edge of my own childhood landscape and
marks a place of arrival and departure.
The verge becomes a microcosm of these
preoccupations.
www.sandrastoreyartist.com
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

Sophie was born and raised in North
Yorkshire and lives in the town of Harrogate
where she currently works from her home
studio.
Sophie Simpson
Feeling Glacial
Beeswax, Damar resin & pigment
100cm x 100cm
She takes inspiration from the colour of the
sea and finds its many shades and variants
tools for tranquillity and calming the mind.
Feeling Glacial is a commentary on the
current crisis of climate change. The
satellite images showing this ice melt
struck me as beautiful and abstract.
depletion of natural resources that is the
cause of this ice melt...I have recreated the
satellite imagery in wax.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award
www.sophiesimpson.com

I am a Leeds-based printmaker and a
member of The Creative Art House.
Teddi Coutts
MMLVIII
Collagraph Prints
36cm x 58cm
My work reflects the colours and shapes of
the landscape, interpreted through printing
and mixed media techniques. I use scrap
materials to create collagraph plates and
re-purpose my cleaning materials as
chine colle.
MMLVIII is a Tryptych of collagraph prints:
after each print was pulled, a portion of
the plate was removed to demonstrate the
effect of the rising oceans on the earth as
a result of global warming.
The title refers to the year once predicted
for the world to be covered by water.
www.instagram.com/teddico4
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

After a science education and 35 years
earning a living therefrom, I decided
to follow my dream of being a fine art
photographer. After an MA awarded with
distinction in 2012, I have sought a practice
concerned with revitalising understanding of
the interconnectedness which is innate
to life and the earth.
Walter Lewis
caught by the fish
Hand-made photobook
31.5cm x 31.5cm x 2cm
Caught by the fish is a response to visiting
the Sierra Maria mountains of Andalucía.
It is wild and arid country, a three-way,
battleground between almond farming,
invading pines and the ravages of climate
change. Here I meditated on Tim Morton’s
writings on being ecological.
Emerging Artist 2020/21 Award
www.spiritoftheland.co.uk

THE SUBJECT IS
This is a subject that affects every one of us in many
different ways. How you as an artist choose to interpret
the theme is entirely personal to you.
The award is open to up-and-coming artists in the Yorkshire
Region who are not represented by an agent and are not
yet recognised by art critics or the general public.
There is a £1250 cash award to the winning submission
and a further 9 awards of £100 for the nine runners up.
Please visit our website for further details:
www.scafemergingartist.co.uk
www.scafemergingartist.co.uk
Scott Creative Arts Foundation

2020
Alfie Fox
Alysia Webster
Barbara Hellowell
Maggie Thompson
Ros Walker
Russell Hughes
Sandra Storey
Sophie Simpson
Teddi Coutts
Walter Lewis
Scott Creative Arts Foundation