The award celebrates queer creativity and supports the art emerging from our talented community
BY DIVA STAFF, IMAGE BY SERENA BETTI
This month saw the fourth year that the national LGBTQIA+ museum Queer Britain partnered with Madame F Wine for the much-loved Madame F Queer Britain Art Award. The ceremony celebrates queer creativity and supports the art emerging from our talented community.
The top prizes of £1500, £1000 and £500 were awarded during the special reception at the museum in Granary Square. This year’s winners were Sarah Jane Moon, Emily Witham and David Roberts who won first, second and third place, respectively.
Sarah Jane’s piece was a colourful portrait of the trailblazing Reeta Loi who Sarah described as: “A vital spokesperson for the South Asian LGBTQ+ community”. Sarah Jane had this to say on winning first place: “After three years on the shortlist, I’m absolutely thrilled to have won the Madame F Queer Britain Art Award. Recognition from the LGBTQIA+ community means a great deal – it felt on the night like a warm hug from the queer art world. I’m still buzzing and can’t wait to use this award as a springboard to create more work that celebrates the brilliant diversity and talent within our community.”
Emily’s piece was all about dyke history and futures. On coming second she said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be receiving this recognition from Queer Britain and the Madame F Art Award. My work is a stitched love letter to all the lesbians that came before me, and to all that will come after. It’s an honouring to dyke history, as well as dyke futures. I am incredibly grateful to all the judges for selecting this installation piece (based on the Black Widows lesbian motorcycle gang) to come second place in this year’s prize giving. I plan to use the award money to reinvest back into my art practice, creating more work about the communities that I belong to.”
David’s piece was wonderfully colourful and joyous. “The piece that I entered was taken from my book We Are Your Children, A History Of LGBTQ+ Activism, it shows a disco in 1980 with the focus on queer joy, self-acceptance and celebration,” David told DIVA. “I never imagined when I was a kid growing up at a time when there was still so much hostility and prejudice towards queer people that I could enter a competition such as this. So I was absolutely thrilled to take part and be awarded third place. What a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on the work of queer artists.”
DIVA’s editor-in-chief Roxy Bourdillon was among the panel of judges that were looking for originality and overall artistic quality. Alia Romagnoli, Iain Muggoch, Kate Charlesworth, Mark King, Oliver Freeston, Paul Harfleet and Robert Taylor were also on this year’s panel.
Queer Britain and Madame F acknowledged Christopher Turrell, E.M. Parry, Jason Carr, Kevin Kane, Kizzie-Mai Lightburn-Jones, Klaus Piechocki, Petra-Jurik Dracovich and Philip Jack Bray with a special mention.
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