Yorkshire-based artist and Chippendale school graduate Hannah Honeywill has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious Broomhill National Sculpture Prize.
Hannah, who graduated from the school in 2008, now works as an artist who uses the furniture making and restoration skills she learnt on the course to make sculpture.
The Broomhill Art and Sculpture Foundation launched the sculpture prize in 2009 with an annual prize fund of £15,000 to provide an exciting challenge for new and emerging UK based sculptors.
Each year ten short-listed sculptors selected by a panel of judges receives £1,000 each to create their proposed sculpture which is then exhibited at the Broomhill Sculpture Park in an annual summer exhibition.
Two overall winners are announced each October, one chosen by the public and the other by a panel of judges.
The brief was to design a sculpture suitable for outdoor display, and each artist had to submit a series of hand-drawn sketches to show the creative process of the sculptural design.
The judges’ winner receives £3,500, and the winning piece becomes part of the Broomhill Art and Sculpture Foundation’s collection.
Hannah’s sculpture is titled Funambulist (has patriarchy slipped?), and is a Queen Anne style winged armchair that has lost its balance and slipped from a tightrope, yet is still managing to cling on.
“I chose this traditional style of chair as it represents to me a certain sense of Britishness, establishment and patriarchy,” says Hannah.
“I have used a tightrope as it’s a platform for spectacle and wonder but which also has the potential to be the scene of failure.
“The tightrope walker, or funambulist, is viewed by the audience with anticipation: will they be successful or not?
“What you encounter when you view this sculpture is evidence of an unsuccessful attempt. But the chair is holding on, refusing to fall to its fate; or perhaps it’s desperately clinging on, waiting to be rescued?” she says.
Hannah, who is also a graduate of Camberwell and Birmingham Schools of Art, exhibits across the country. Last year, for example, she exhibited at the Anise Gallery and ARTHOUSE1 in London, and the Barber Institute of Fine Art in Birmingham.
In 2016 she exhibited at the New Art West Midlands exhibitions and was selected for a residency at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.
In 2017, Hannah was elected as a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
