Young Fine Artist in Residence Finale

Since 2017, Castle Fine Art has regularly worked with local communities to inspire the next generation of young artists. In cities across the UK, school children of all ages and abilities have been invited into our galleries with their teachers to view the artwork on display and hear all about our artists from our knowledgeable art consultants. Of course, no field trip would be complete without the obligatory homework! We tasked them to recreate whichever piece caught their eye, and bring their masterpieces back into the gallery so that our team could award 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners.

Read more here 

 While things are still far from business as usual, we thought a great many of you will be looking for ways to keep your children amused at home – so we decided to take our competition online! We launched our ‘Young Fine Artist in Residence’ campaign in May 2020; a nationwide creative competition for children to showcase their artistic talents.

The rules were simple: browse our website with your kids, let them discover which of our artists sparks their imagination the most, keep them busy with a project to recreate their favourite piece and then send us their finished masterpieces by 30th of June.

The future generation did not disappoint – we were overwhelmed by the response! Over 150 budding young artists, with ages ranging from six to sixteen, sent in their submissions from all over the UK. Reviewing all the skilful interpretations of our artists’ work, and reading why the children had been drawn to their chosen artworks, was thoroughly enjoyable for the team here at HQ. The calibre of work we received was exceptional, and it gave our judging panel a very difficult job indeed!

Having narrowed it down to their favourite top ten entries, our judges made their final decision:

1st PLACE

Reuben Pendergrast, age 11, for his exceptional interpretation of Pakpoom Silaphan’s artwork. The judges thought that he showed remarkable skill in using such a wide range of techniques and materials – from digital editing to watercolours, chalk and charcoal – and had made the subject matter extremely relevant by adapting the original artwork to include a touch of social commentary.

Reuben said: “I wanted it to look like the original, but relate it to what we are fighting today. COVID feels like a brand in itself now, so I replaced Coca-Cola to symbolise me punching it out to help all the key workers.”

2nd PLACE

Layla Kay Karic, age 16, for her beautiful reimagining of ‘Aztec’ by Robert Oxley. In choosing to give her piece a much darker background than the original, the colours became even more vibrant and impactful. Very impressive!

Layla told us that she particularly liked doing animal portraits, and had been drawn particularly to ‘Aztec’ because of the colour and depth in Robert’s painting.

3rd PLACE

Daniela Berrio, age 10, for her very own genuine fake (more on that here!) based on artist John Myatt’s ‘Girl with Red Hair Portrait in the Style of Pablo Picasso’. The judges commented on her understanding of Picasso’s style, and excellent brushwork!

Daniela said: “I chose ‘Girl with Red Hair Portrait in the Style of Pablo Picasso’ because I have always been inspired by this artist, specially his Cubism style. I learnt about him at School and, because I am Spanish too, I thought I could be a little Picasso making my own version of John Myatt’s version.”

Congratulation to our lucky winners, who will each receive vouchers to spend at Cass Art on materials for their next masterpieces!

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