Wednesday 30 March 2016

Beth Collar wins Mark Tanner Sculpture Award

Work by Beth Collar

Beth Collar (Drawing Year 2010) has won the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award.

Press release
Standpoint is delighted to announce that Beth Collar has won the 2016-17 Mark Tanner Sculpture Award. Collar wins £8,000 towards the production of new work over the coming year, towards a solo exhibition at Standpoint in 2017.

Collar was selected from 207 applicants from across mainland UK, by a panel comprising Tim Marlow, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy, British artist Hew Locke,  Mark Tanner Sculpture Award winner 2015-16 Megan Broadmeadow, and MTSA trustee Rebecca Scott.

There was an extremely strong shortlist of eight artists selected for interview. Shortlisted artists were Zoe Schoenherr, Jonathan Trayte, Elly Thomas, Emily Motto, Nicolas Rojas Hayes, Hermione Allsop and Miranda Housden.The Mark Tanner Sculpture Award is the most significant award for emerging artists working in the field of sculpture in the UK: offering £8,000 in financial support towards the making of new work plus a solo show at Standpoint Gallery to an exceptional emerging artist working in sculpture. The MTSA seeks to reward outstanding and innovative practice, with a particular interest in work that demonstrates a commitment to process, or sensitivity to material.


Collar works in sculpture, drawing, video and text. The main method she employs is an appropriated form of experimental archaeology, a sort of role-play or drag, which she combines with the methods of the prop maker. 
Through engineering scenarios both physical and mental: the blacksmith; the witch; the medium; the medieval sculptor; beings are embodied and things are made: a forged spearhead; performance to camera; etching or sculpture; a replica velociraptor claw; a text; a bouncy, rubber severed head. Collar combines the authentic with the authentic-looking, being interested in and troubled by the fine line that the figure of the ‘artist’ also embodies.

Collar lives and works in Bristol. Since exhibiting in Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2008 her work has been displayed in several prestigious institutions in the UK and internationally, including Probably, Like a Melon Rolling Off a Table: Part II, solo performance for Saturday Live, Serpentine Galleries, London, Jan 2015, Secret Agents, group exhibition curated by Hemera Collective, Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Sept-Oct 2015 and 11/50, solo show, Fig-2, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, March 2015
. Collar is currently Artist in Residence at University of Bristol History Dept in the 'Figure of the Witch' research project. Her Tall Tales, touring group exhibition is at the Freud Museum London, Rochdale and Glasgow Women’s Library from March 2016 – 2017.
 
You can hear an interview with the artist here.

Last year's recipient of the prize is exhibiting at Standpoint gallery in April 2016:


Megan Broadmeadow A CORRUPTION OF MASS
Mark Tanner Sculpture Award
Exhibition: 28 April – 4 June 2016
Opening: Wednesday 27 April 6-8.30pm
Standpoint | 45 Coronet Street, London N1