This is the page where we blow each others’ trumpets when a member of HB Drawing wins a prize or is selected for a show!
2023
The inaugural Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Drawing Prize exhibition In September and October will include work by two HB artists: Caragh Savage and Su Bonfanti.
Ruth Richmond is one of only 12 artists shortlisted for the Evening Standard Art Prize 2023. Her ‘Family Diversity’ group of soul poles will be on display at 4 Cromwell Place in September.
This drawing by Janine Hall was selected for the Riverside Studios Summer Exhibition, a celebration of work by artists living in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Two of Su Bonfanti’s Capital Ring drawings were in separate group shows in Sheffield in June, the one on the left in Urban Jungle at Fronteer Gallery and the one on the right in Delphic at Cupola Gallery.
Chloe Briggs of Drawing Is Free held a ten year anniversary exhibition in Paris in June showcasing one drawing from participants in either her Monday portrait drawing sessions (which started off in person but moved online during COVID and remain online, allowing more people to take part from all over the world); or her monthly drawing Patreon programme. Several artists from HB Drawing took part.
Rounding off a busy month in May, artists Caroline Holt-Wilson and Janine Hall spent a week in a residency based on the slopes of Cortona, Italy. The images below are a selection of ‘walk and draw’ drawings by Janine Hall cataloguing the pathways around the garden.
Somewhere In-between at East Cliff House during May 2023 included work by HB artists Ruth Richmond and Janine Hall.
Also in May the show #mybodyinmyhands at the SVA Gallery in Stroud had small pieces contributed by Rosalind Barker, Ruth Richmond and Su Bonfanti.
The SFSA Drawing Open 2023 at No Format Gallery, Deptford, London SE14 in May 2023 included drawings by several HB artists.
The left hand drawing is by Janine Hall and came out of @drawingisfree session run by Chloe Briggs, where each portrait drawing is completed to one track of music. The right hand drawing by Su Bonfanti ‘Drawing Richmond Bridge in the rain’ was indeed made in the rain and didn’t go according to plan, but Su decided she liked it anyway.
The Useful Drawings show at Eye to Pencil Gallery in Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4QE in March included this ‘walking and drawing’ piece by Su Bonfanti.
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, included Ruth Richmond’s Spider Poems in their Contemporary Landscape show in March.
In February, Ruth Richmond’s Soul Poles were on show at AKA Contemporary in Cambridge.
2022
In October 2022, the Fen Ditton Gallery, near Cambridge, launched a season on Art and the Environment with a cross-disciplinary exhibition, Art and the River Deben, exploring artists connections to the river. The show included three drawings made by Janine Hall as part of the Deben Soundings project showing the changing face of the river over a year-long study during the Covid lockdowns.
The SFSA Drawing Open 2022 at No Format Gallery, Deptford, London SE14 in June 2022 included drawings by several HB artists.
The Society of Graphic Fine Artists Open 22 at the Mall Galleries in May 2022 included Forest Fragment, 2021 by Ruth Richmond.
HB artists Janine Hall and Ruth Richmond were part of a year-long research project aiming to gain a broader community understanding of the Deben Estuary Landscape and to encourage more informed participation in the development of a new iteration of the Deben Estuary Management Plan. They walked both banks of the river Deben from its mouth to its source. The work they made in response was part of Deben Soundings II at the ArtSpace, Woodbridge, Suffolk in April 2022.
Janine’s three drawings show the changing face of the Deben over a year-long study during the Covid lockdowns.
MAP a show curated across three venues in North Kent in March 2022, looked at how maps function as ‘a symbolic visual representation of the relationships between elements within a given space or time, either physical, imaginary or metaphorical’ and included one of Su Bonfanti’s Wish you were here postcard series.
2021
The ING Discerning Eye exhibition 2021 will include these two portraits by Caragh Savage.
Another year, another HB artist is selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize! This year, Su Bonfanti‘s windowscape drawing has been shortlisted and will be in the 2021 exhibition.
No fewer than three HB artists have had worked selected for the show Figurative Art Now, celebrating 60 years of the Federation of British Artists. This is an online show which will be launched on Wednesday 7 July and will be available until Monday 20 September.
Ruth Richmond will be showing the drawing on the left: Forest Floor Autumn, 2020; and Janine Hall will be showing White Light on Black Water (2) (River Thames – Incoming Tide) 2020, below right.
The show will include three drawings by Su Bonfanti: two from the postcard series Wish You Were Here and the triptych Seascapes.
The Society of Graphic Fine Art Annual Open Exhibition 2021 will include this drawing by Ruth Richmond. The show will be at the Mall Galleries, London from Tuesday 6 July to Sunday 11 July 2021.
Caroline Holt-Wilson is one of a group of six artists and two poets who each created a piece of work about CoVid and then sent it to another member of the group who created work in response. The works circulated round the group and the resulting responses, including this one by Caroline, are on show in Track and Trace at the Art Shop and Chapel, Cross Street, Abergavenny from 19 June to 27 July 2021.
2020
The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2020 will include work by two HB artists, Rosalind Barker and Su Bonfanti. The show is entirely online this year and will be available to view from Thursday 19 November to Thursday 31 December 2020.
No less than three HB artists have had work selected for the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) Open Exhibition 2020. The exhibition was planned to run at the RWA in Bristol from 21 November 2020 to 7 March 2021. When the gallery reopens, you may need to book in advance and the gallery may be open for reduced hours, so do check their website before visiting. But all the work should be available to view online as well.
Caragh Savage Morphometry of Essence III, 2020 charcoal, silverpoint and varnish on gesso board; 21cm x 29.5cm
Su Bonfanti portakabins, Clapham Junction 2020: charcoal, silverpoint and varnish on gesso board; 21cm x 29.5 cm
Rosalind Barker Piece 2 from the Token Women series, 2019: 0.05 pigment liner on translucent paper; 38cm x 38cm x 4cm
Two drawings by Janine Hall have been selected for the Society of Women Artists Open Exhibition 2020. The show is entirely online and available to view here until 31 December 2020.
This drawing, Untitled (Glass Shadows) 2020, graphite on paper, is a study in showing how the shadows of a Victorian champagne and water glass move slowly s from a sharp image, dissolving into a soft one
This second drawing, Untitled (Window Shadow) shows the light and shade from a steel window cast across a stool and concrete floor in an old pencil factory in Portugal, where Janine had a residency in 2019. Each layer of pencil is polished to produce a deep dark effect with a velvety feeling and an overall soft shine, depending on how light falls across the work.
These ‘soul poles’ by Ruth Richmond have been selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition 2020. The show will debut at Drawing Projects, Trowbridge, Wiltshire from 2 to 31 October before moving to other venues; full details here. The poles are from Ruth’s own woodland trees and the marks are made with chalk paint and burned contour lines. They were made during lockdown with one for each member of her family.
Janine Hall has had a drawing selected for the Derwent Art Prize 2020. All the shortlisted drawings will be on show at the Gallery @OXO in London from Wednesday 22 April to Sunday 3 May, before going to a gallery 20 rue Saint Claude, Paris from Tuesday 12 to Saturday 16 May.
Two HB artists have work in a show open to residents of the London Borough of Richmond: the Diana Armfield Exhibition of drawings made from direct observation. The show is on at the Barn Church, 41 Atwood Ave, Kew, Richmond TW9 4HF from Tuesday 25 February to Sunday 1 March, noon to 5pm. Private view and prize giving Thursday 27 February 6-8pm. Su Bonfanti‘s is the drawing on the left: rainy day paving 2019, made from the comfort of her sitting room looking out at the garden. And Caragh Savage is showing the two drawings on the right: Reclining Head 1, 2016 and Reclining Head 2, 2015.
Ruth Richmond has two works in the exhibition Fifty Bees 4 at Black Swan Arts in Frome, which runs from Saturday 8 February to Saturday 14 March. The Private View is on Friday 7 February from 6-8pm if you are in the area.
The show has been created by Somerset artist Lydia Needle who has sculpted fifty British bees in wool and stitch; fifty other artists, including Ruth, have created responses to each bee. The intention is to highlight the importance of bees in our ecosystem, their contribution to pollination and new birth and their precarious plight.
Work by several HB artists is on show in Thinking Graphite at Drawing Projects in Trowbridge, Wiltshire until Saturday 1 February 2020. The exhibition is the outcome of a project developed by a group of artists who met on the MA Drawing programme at Wimbledon College of Arts, in association with the Viarco Pencil Factory, São João da Madeira in Portugal. You can read more about their residency in 2019 here. The range of work is extraordinary and reflects the encouragement and challenge offered by the environment and resources at Viarco. Shown right is ‘Selfie’ by Janine Hall.
Below are two works by Caroline Holt-Wilson: Factory Line, 2020: graphite stick on card; 8cm x 13cm and Rope Line and Monkey Knot, 2020: graphite powder on newsprint; dimensions variable.
The Pastel Society have selected a drawing by Janine Hall for the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. The show runs from Wednesday 5 February to Sunday 16 February, open 10am to 5pm daily.
2019
Rosalind Barker was runner up in the Overdrawn London Drawing Group/Dark Yellow Dot Drawing Prize 2019. Circles was one of the works she entered. You can see it along with all the other finalists’ work at Buster Mantis, 4 Resolution Way, Deptford SE8 4NT from 28 March to 25 April.
The first success of 2019: Janine Hall‘s drawing Pool has been shortlisted for the Lynn Painters-Stainers Prize. It will be on show from 5-17 March 2019 at the Mall Galleries, London SW1, open 10am to 5pm every day.
2018
New HB member, Caroline Holt-Wilson‘s drawing Traces 1 was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017 and has been part of the touring exhibition being shown in London, Norwich, Bath, Canterbury, Newcastle and finally Trowbridge in August and September 2018.
Not one but two members of HB have been shortlisted in the Drawing and Printmaking category of the Signature Art Prize 2018/19:
Su Bonfanti with A True Story, 2017, a piece made for her final degree show and Ruth Richmond with Momentum in 8 rectangles, made recently.
Ruth also has a new piece, Blood Rhythms 3, in the Curator’s Selection Preview of the SFSA Painting Open, which will be at SFSA’s new studios in Wembley on Thursday 22 November.
Janine Hall has two works selected for the SFSA Painting Open 2018 and shown at the No Format Gallery. Below is one of the works:
Janine Hall will be showing the piece below in the South West Academy Open 2018 at Exeter Castle, from 11 to 23 November.
The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2018 will include this drawing by Janine Hall. In making this drawing, she was inspired by research at the British Museum Prints and Drawing room and images collected on one of our As I Walked Out excursions. The exhibition will be at the Mall Galleries in central London from Thursday 15 to Sunday 25 November 2018.
Caragh Savage has had a drawing shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2018 (formerly the Jerwood Drawing Prize), for the second year running. Here is After Julia III, which you can see in the show at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London E14 0JY from 29 September to 17 October 2018. Details of the dates for the touring venues at the Arts University Bournemouth, the Royal Drawing School London, Drawing Projects UK in Trowbridge and the Chapel Gallery in Omskirk can be found here.
Su Bonfanti has had this drawing, Tanhurst House/Piazza Epiro, shortlisted for the Derwent Art Prize 2018. It will be shown at the Mall Galleries in central London from 18 to 23 September 2018; then at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge from 29 September to 10 November 2018; ending up at The Pencil Museum, Cumbria, from 15 November 2018 to 31 January 2019.
A drawing by Su Bonfanti Analysis of Motion was selected for the show My Muybridge at Kingston Museum, Kingston-upon-Thames, which runs until 7 July 2018.
The Marcus Beale Architect Prize and Residency 2017 was awarded to Janine Hall. During the week-long residency Janine visited sites in Oxford and Wimbledon, taking reference photographs, and then worked in the architectural practice, producing this drawing, Outside In.
The Maggie Clarke Sketchbook Prize is awarded each year to a student graduating from the MA Drawing course at Wimbledon College of Arts. In 2017 Ruth Richmond won the prize for this concertina sketchbook.
Caragh Savage’s drawing Henriette: Quiet Memory was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017 and has been part of the touring exhibition being shown in London, Norwich, Bath, Canterbury, Newcastle and finally Trowbridge in August and September 2018.
HB 