Columbia Threadneedle Prize

3 – 20 February 2016

Mall Galleries, London

Maria Bower‘s Photo-etching, Lily, has been selected for the prestigious  Columbia Threadneedle Prize.

Maria is a member and former SPS staff member. Chairs are an ongoing theme in Maria’s work, here she explains the thought process behind her work.

There are a few objects which I feel have a personality and life story of their own because they can assume an individual identity, such as doors, suitcases, books and chairs. A chair can be a potent object which can evoke feelings from love to repulsion just through imagining what it might be like to sit in it. Each chair is portrait of someone or something. I use them to symbolise a human presence by referring to significant people in my live, through which I can express my thoughts by adding in bits of writing and text of my own. Once created they then become characters in their own right and definitely with a life of their own.

The Columbia Threadneedle exhibition showcases the very best in new figurative and representational art and the 2016 Prize winner will be announced at a Gala Awards Dinner at the Mall Galleries in London on 2 February 2016. Visitors to the London exhibition will also decide the Visitors’ Choice Award, worth £10,000.