NEAC Announces New Climate Emergency Prize
/ New English Art Club
The New English Art Club has announced an exciting new award for their Annual Exhibition 2025: The NEAC Climate Emergency Prize.
The opportunity to win this award of £2,000 for the winner, and £500 to a runner up, will be open to all artists (members and non-members) exhibiting at next year's show.
Why a Climate Emergency Prize at the New English Art Club?
The New English Art Club has a long tradition of showing work related directly to the environment. The NEAC was formed partly as a consequence of the radical engagement with nature pioneered by the French Impressionists. This history of plein air observation is still a major strand linking members' working practices.
I am sure I am not the only landscape painter in this Society who has noticed the changes to the environment over the past twenty to forty years. Industrial farming practices, deforestation and global warming have all changed the look of our landscapes and crucially their biodiversity.
What is the prize?
The NEAC, with the support of their Patron, His Majesty King Charles III has found sponsorship for a £2,000 Climate Emergency Prize, alongside a £500 runner up prize for the two best artworks in their Annual Exhibition 2025 that address the climate crisis.
The NEAC feel that while no one has all the answers to the current climate crisis, this prize is one small way in which they can help to further raise public awareness of such a critical matter. It also offers those brave artists who feel impelled to address these concerns through their art an opportunity to show their work and maybe even win an award.
Judging
The award will be judged by a panel of artists.
Emma Stibbon RA is a British artist whose large-scale drawings and prints consider the complexities of extreme environments undergoing transition and change. Often working from remote locations, among them the polar regions, volcanic terrains, deserts and coastal environments, her approach is driven by her wish to understand how human activity and the forces of nature are shaping our surroundings.
Olwyn Bowey RA is a British artist whose work focuses on landscape and still-lifes. Bowey's love of the natural world means she often works outdoors, or in her greenhouse, which doubles as a studio.
'I still don’t think of myself as an artist. I always wanted to be a naturalist. I just wanted to be outside.'
Leon Morrocco RSA is a Scottish artist based in London known for his vibrant paintings inspired by his travels.
'It is in the past five years that I have almost exclusively focused on [...] our natural surroundings, specifically in the mountains and hills of the Alpes-Maritimes behind the city of Nice. I am particularly excited by the physical characteristics of this region - crossed by lateral escarpments of white limestone, it is rugged and undomesticated landscape and for me impressive in its timeless monumentality.'
NEAC Call for Entries 2025
To be eligible for consideration for this prize, artists must submit a piece of work to the NEAC Open Call that addresses the climate crisis in some way.
The NEAC Call for Entries opens on Monday 9 December 2024.