Gillian Dickinson North East Young Sculptor of the Year Award: Dan Gough

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Dan has spent 9 months bringing alive his vision of a scampering ‘scurry’ of 2000 red and grey squirrels cavorting across the grounds of Cheeseburn Sculpture. A vision that involved months of toil at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland firing, glazing and placing the squirrels on mounts by hand. Scurry is a hugely ambitious installation that will be sited within the Victorian Walled Garden at Cheeseburn in time for May’s unveiling.

Dan has been mentored through the whole process of the design and production of his work by Cheeseburn Curator, Matthew Jarratt who says: “Dan had some stiff competition originally but his project really struck a chord with us in that it is particularly topical right now with the worrying decline in the red squirrel population.

Dan has worked really hard to bring life to his proposal and we are all really excited to see the finished work in situ.” Director and Founder of Cheeseburn Sculpture, Joanna Riddell says : “We hope that this unique opportunity will help Dan to develop his career as an artist – which is the main purpose of the award. It is apparent that this is already the case in that he has been commissioned to make Golden Squirrels for the prizes at this year’s Journal Culture Awards.” In the meantime, Cheeseburn Sculpture has announced the shortlist of artists in its second annual North East Young Sculptor of the Year competition.

Over thirty artists, aged 18 - 25 years old applied from across the region, and the shortlist of 12 sees a number of the region’s universities represented. The successful artists on the shortlist will each receive £300 to develop a proposal for a sculpture or installation which will be featured in an exhibition at the Stables Gallery at Cheeseburn from 20 to 29 May 2017.

The winning artist will then receive £6500 to develop their proposal which will be commissioned as a sculpture or installation at Cheeseburn in spring 2018. Visitors to Cheeseburn this spring will be able to see the proposed installations and sculptures and vote for their favourite. A public vote will also take place on the Cheeseburn Facebook page, in addition to input from a selection panel, before the winner is announced later this summer. Sunderland University and the National Glass Centre have supported the production of Scurry.