Daiwa Foundation Art Prize 2018: Kate Groobey / Keith Milow / Mark Neville

About

The selected artists will exhibit respective bodies of work at Daiwa Foundation Japan House from 8 June – 15 July 2018. One of the three shortlisted artists will be invited to exhibit at the Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan in Autumn 2018. In addition, he or she will be awarded a participation fee of £5000, and a period of support and introduction to key individuals and organisations in the Japanese contemporary art world.

The Daiwa Foundation Art Prize 2018 will be presented to the overall winner at a private awards ceremony on 7 June, by a distinguished panel: Richard Cork, Art Critic; Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Sueo Mizuma, Director, Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo; Julian Opie, Artist, and Jonathan Watkins, Director, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

Kate Groobey’s paintings are triggered by an interaction, or shared moment; they portray her relationships with the people she encounters, both familiar and new. As such, the works have a strong personal narrative but also convey social stereotypes and emotions or states that everyone can relate to, like the state of Pure Pleasure, the title of the artist’s recent watercolour series. Kate Groobey also performs as the characters in her paintings, bringing them to life with a series of improvised vignettes, for which she makes the costumes, backdrops and music.

Keith Milow’s work has gone through many transitions since his inaugural group show at Lisson Gallery in 1967. It has, however, remained largely abstract and enigmatic, with the artist applying a set of rules during the making process in order to avoid figuration or any direct narrative. He is concerned primarily with purity of shape, the space it anchors, and the materials, textures and colours that transform it from literal symbol into an abstract construct.

Mark Neville works at the intersection of art and documentary, investigating the social function of photography. He makes lens-based works which have been realised and disseminated in a large array of contexts, as both still and moving image pieces, slideshows, films, and giveaway books. His work has consistently looked to subvert the traditional role of social documentary practice, seeking to find new ways to empower the position of its subject over that of the author. Often working with closely knit communities, in a collaborative process intended to be of direct, practical benefit to the subject, his photographic projects to date have frequently made the towns he portrays the primary audience for the work