Award win puts Georgie’s art in ‘shop window’

The annual award, which comes with a cheque for £2,000, is presented to the best work on display at the annual Anglia Ruskin University Degree Show in Cambridge, and is open to all final year BA (Hons) Fine Art students.

Georgie, who is from Woodbridge in Suffolk, impressed the judges with her work Shelf Like, Chrome Series and Friend or Faux, which bring the aesthetics of a retail space into a gallery.

The 21-year-old former Woodbridge School pupil said: “It is an honour to receive recognition for my Degree Show exhibit in this way, particularly as I stood amongst such an accomplished group of individuals.

“The focus of my work lies within the composition and the merging of existing, familiar objects with materials, to form a seductive but conversely tense form of display.  Crucial to the poise of my sculptural compositions is the apparent ease of their presentation.  They appear just placed and balanced or seemingly unfixed.

“My practice seeks to address, and in some way obscure, the boundaries that exist between the gallery exhibition and the department store display.

“I use familiar objects, often associated with the home or retail display, and insert them into a process of abstraction where the objects’ past functions or associations are distorted and, in a way, replaced with an alternative ‘function’, as a means of challenging our expectations of a contemporary fine art exhibit.”

Benet Spencer, Course Leader for the BA (Hons) in Fine Art, said: “Using humble materials such as packaging foam, chrome metal tubing or coloured string, Georgie creates elegant 3D constructions with compositional arrangements that have a formal beauty more commonly associated with painting.  Winning the Dr Supanee Gazeley Fine Art Prize marks an exciting start to her career as an artist.”

Dr Supanee Gazeley, an internationally-renowned artist, graduated in 1962 from Cambridge College of Arts & Technology (CCAT), a forerunner institution of Anglia Ruskin.  Before focusing on art, Dr Gazeley was a leading figure in the Hong Kong business community for 40 years.  This year the award was presented by her husband, Albert Gazeley.

Sue Jacobs, Head of Development and Alumni Relations, said: “Thanks to her bold and innovative artwork, Georgie is a deserved winner of this year’s award.

“Dr Supanee Gazeley is one of our graduates, one of our Honorary Award holders and also an artist herself, and we are extremely grateful for her continued support.”


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For more press information please contact:
Jon Green on t: 0845 196 4717, e: jon.green@anglia.ac.uk
Jamie Forsyth on t: 0845 196 4716, e: jamie.forsyth@anglia.ac.uk
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