The living room of Brittni Warshaw’s small Tokyo apartment is littered with the usual paraphernalia of toddlerdom: toys, games, dolls, colouring books and crayons. But it’s mummy’s painting easel, set up to catch the light from the window, that chiefly holds her three-year-old’s attention.
Rather than shoo her away, 33 year-old Warshaw, a former commercial photographer from Louisiana, US, embraces her daughter Ari’s interest and even invites her to join in.
“When I was making my first body of work early last year, it was great because she would use all the colours I had and would reach with her whole body across the canvas,” Warshaw recalls.
It was only [when I won the prize] that I started actually calling myself an artist
Unorthodox, certainly. But it worked. Last May, Warshaw was selected as one of six winners of a new art competition created by entrepreneur Paul Smith’s Foundation and the UK-based heritage artists’ materials manufacturer, Winsor & Newton.
The winners make for a diverse bunch. They herald from across the globe: from Paris and London to Hong Kong and New York. Creatively, they are no less varied, with their influences ranging from medicine and science with an Afrocentrist bent, through to digital technology seen through the prism of classical still life.
What all the winners share is their status as emerging artists. The W&N x PSF Art Prize exists to support creative professionals who are in the first decade of their career. To that end, winners receive £1,000 from the Paul Smith Foundation, plus up to £1,000 worth of materials from Winsor & Newton’s wide selection of fine art and graphic art products.
