A contemporary art award
The objective of the Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize is to open up new conversations around contemporary art, to inspire students and visitors, and to support some of the many talented artists emerging from the Ruskin School of Art. We acquire one graduate and one undergraduate piece each year from the Ruskin for Mansfield College.
Origin of the award
The Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize is an award funded by the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, generously facilitated by Mansfield alumnus Sir Paul Ruddock (Jurisprudence, 1977).
Specialist judging panels
Judges of the Prize over the last few years have included distinguished figures from the art world, including:
- architect Amanda Levete CBE
- entrepreneur Matthew Slotover OBE, founder of Frieze Art Fairs
- Stephanie Straine, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland
- artist Marc Quinn
- BAFTA-winning film-maker, Simon Pummell (English, 1977)
- contemporary artist Edmund de Waal CBE
- Yana Peel, Global Head of Arts and Culture at Chanel
- Adam Lowe, Founder of Factum Arte and Factum Foundation
- contemporary artist, Rana Begum
- Victoria Siddall, Director of Frieze Art Fairs
“We are delighted to reflect the imaginative character of Mansfield College in the award of Mansfield-Ruddock awards. The Prize is intended to support Ruskin School artists at an early stage in their careers, and to inspire, delight and intrigue the Mansfield community and our visitors with the possibilities and stimulus of exciting modern art. We are hugely grateful to our alumnus Sir Paul Ruddock and the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts for making the awards possible, and to our distinguished juries for helping us to select the winners.”
2023 Winners
Bumni Agusto
Reaching Through Worlds, 2023
Agusto’s work is informed by a paracosm — a pocket reality with braided terrains she has named ‘Within’. It is a repository for the people, objects and theories she encounters in her waking life as she creates fantastical retellings of her lived experiences, and the unseen mechanics of the metaphysical forces around us. Following recent experiences with grief, Agusto introduced printed figures alongside the drawn figures in her works to explore the relationship between the spiritual and physical respectively. This work depicts a drawn character napping untroubled by the apparitions flying loose in the sky.
Paige Diedrick-Edwards
Little Fires Everywhere, 2023
Diedrick-Edwards’ work focuses on bringing dark obsessions and hidden interpersonal interactions into a harsh light for analysis. She depicts snapshots of catastrophe and violence and unpicks personal experiences, transforming them into something more tangible, and presenting them as plot points on which startling connections can be projected. This work was originally dispersed throughout the 2023 Ruskin Degree Show, interrupting the entire exhibition space with small moments of catastrophe. Each a bright and detailed snapshot of a fire, the works represent the pervasiveness and jarring nature of intrusive thoughts and obsessions in the day to day.
2022 winners
- Joy Labinjo’s large scale paintings rooted in her British-Nigerian heritage
- Saba Qizilbash’s drawings tell her stories and those of her ancestors
- Eliza Owen’s installation focusing on movement between landscape and architecture
2021 winners
- Charles de Agustin’s black and white photograph collection, Sub fusc
- Joanna McClurg’s tapestries: Rangers (1,2) and photographs of painting: Centenary Painting
- Highly commended, Hogan Schia’s photo series, Det var en gang… Mitt Skattekammer (1, 2, 3, and 4)
2019 winners
- Anya Gleizer’s sculptures Granny’s Bones and accompanying Anthropometamorphosis performance
- Greta Sharp’s film, Conversation with myself
