LSAD Open Drawing Awards Exhibition 2010

When Charles Harper (then Head of Fine Art at Limerick School of Art and Design) initiated the Open Drawing Awards Exhibition in LSAD in 2006 it was, in his words, to "bring into focus the importance of Drawing as a fundamental creative skill that deserves to be developed not only among students of Art and Design, but also among all who wish to expand their expressive powers. The Open Drawing Awards' aim," he said, "is to both celebrate and stimulate the continuing practice of Drawing." 

This remains its aim today - in what is now the 5th year of its existence.

Each year an average of 450 works are submitted by students from every department of Limerick School of Art and Design, and it is from these entries that an invited curator selects the eventual show. Each of the chosen works is then eligible to win one of the €500.00 purchase awards offered by our sponsors. 

This year the awards comprise The AIB Bank Award and The Charles Harper Award, as well as three  Commendation Awards of Special Merit nominated by the curator. 

Over the years we have had with a succession of distinguished curators for this annual exhibition: 

2006 Mike Fitzpatrick (then Director, Limerick City Gallery of Art, now Head of School at LSAD) 

2006 Hugh Murray (Murray/O'Laoire Architects)

2006 John Shinnors (Artist)

2007 Aidan Dunne (Art Critic of the Irish Times)

2008 Arno Kramer (Artist)

2009 Terry Gravett (Artist)

For the  2010 exhibition the curator is one of Ireland's leading contemporary painters: Donald Teskey RHA, who is renowned as an exceptional draughtsman in his own right, with a deep and abiding enthusiasm for this most primary of all art activities. Donald Teskey was born in Co. Limerick and came to prominence as an artist through his skill as a draughtsman during the 1980s.  Since 1992 he has crafted out a substantial body of work as a painter of the landscape and more recently of the ruggedness of the western seaboard. Sometimes working on a very large scale, he creates powerful images of instantly recognisable parts of the Irish landscape with large abstract passages and surfaces which articulate the relentless energetic and elemental force of nature.  He is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and Aosdána. His work is held in a number of major collections including the Arts Council of Ireland and Irish Museum of Modern Art and he is represented by the Rubicon Gallery, Dublin.

http://www.rubicongallery.ie/artists/donaldteskey/