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Learn drawing & painting with dedicated courses for drawing, acrylic, oil and watercolours. Learn from the best tutors either at the centre or live online.
Find out who was selected for the 2020 edition of the Sunny Art Prize. 49 artists (instead of 30) working with a range of media, were selected for this year’s opportunity.
Find out more about professional and academic art courses for young students. Expert fine art tutors provide bespoke art tuition for targeted results with drawing & painting.
Learn about the story of exceptional artists and works of art, from paintings by Renaissance and Modern old masters to ancient sculptures.
The Sunny Art Prize has established itself as one of the UK’s most prestigious international art competitions. The scope of this contemporary art prize is about sourcing the most talented artists from all over the world, both established and emerging, who produce ground-breaking and innovative artworks. We select artists who work with a wide range of media, making the art prize a varied and stimulating global platform to engage with critical contemporary issues and topics. The art competition is open to everyone, regardless of location or preferred medium and theme.
Every year, we shortlist 30 artists, among whom we select three winners. All the shortlisted artists have the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Sunny Art Centre, London, a prestigious art institution with an extraordinary collection of old masters and artworks by leading contemporary artists. The winners, alongside seven other artists chosen from the shortlist, have the chance to exhibit their work with our partnering galleries in China. The exhibiting galleries are located in cities across China, such as Beijing and Shanghai. They are amongst the leading art institutions in the Asian art market.
This art contest also gives the art prize-winners the chance to experience a one-month artist residency in China. The Artist Residency Programme is organised in collaboration with established Chinese art institutions, and it provides the opportunity to engage with historically and culturally rich places in China.
Daniel Jackont is a London-based photographer and film director born in 1993.
His career began after finishing his Film and TV studies when Daniel became fascinated by people’s backgrounds, lives, characters, and personal experiences
His approach to photography is driven by documenting the unique stories that reveal themselves from the subjects, the ability to frame and capture life moments of people, in a somewhat surreal manner by using light, set, and color which is an important ingredient in Daniel’s work
This point of view inspires and leads the narrative look and feel of his projects.
Daniel’s work ranges from extravagant fashion to classic portraits and romantic storytelling through positioning a character in a specific situation. Began his creative process by developing a message and writing a short script, with a more profound approach of a comprehensive process from idea to a full concept completion creating while researching, testing all elements, and building the concept and the images.
Creating a naive and youthful mood, the viewer can be immersed in a new reality, continually holding a promise of an adventure - a scene from a movie one always craved to be a part of.
By engaging and understanding his subjects, Daniel is creating a closeness that allows them to act naturally and by that shows a more subtle side of them.
The ability to mix between the genres of Surrealism and documentary and create scenes and compositions based on his subject's true experiences and thoughts is the most intriguing aspect of photography for Daniel.
Medium: 35 mm analog format colour
Size: 59.4 x 84.1cm
Year: 2017
The selected image by Sunny Art Prize jury is part of a personal project inspired by timeless novels such as,” Lord of the flies‘' by William Golding and ‘’Bonjour Tristesse‘' by Francois Sagan, and its main themes are youth, adolescence, love, and gender.
These themes are presented by a series of scenes and situations showing and exploring the relationships and interactions between the individual and a group while reflecting a youthful spirit and eternal freedom.
This project included photographing three boys and one girl by a hidden lake in the north of Israel.
Elly Cho's art explores the intersection between nature, the environment, and human behavior, across various mediums including mixed media, video, and performance art.
Cho’s approach to art-making is largely inspired by the relationship between the natural environment and the viewer’s perception of nature-based on their personal history. She approaches the subject matter of cultural landscapes in narrative form, and these narratives often relate to her own life experiences and memories. In her video work, She has used familiar landscapes that stimulate viewers to engage with an imaginative response.
Her recent research about color, nature and mental health brought a new body of work that explores the relationship between ecology and human existence. By drawing on colors and movement of nature, aesthetic of being, and poetry in nature. She tries to mimic the movement of the species and then expands the drawing to a more imaginary scene of poeticism. She feels that nature is a place where everyone feels to be part of and even if we are all apart from each other, being in nature, makes us together and connected. Through her work, She seeks to instill in the viewer a highly charged but nostalgic awareness of things long since the past. She aims to experiment further, encouraging political engagement that allows both artwork and environment to jointly contribute to current artistic discourse.
Cho’s awards include “Times Square Midnight Moment” in New York, Excellence Award in Poetry Writing from Samteo Literary organization in Korea, Myers Community Art Project Award from Columbia University in New York, and a residency with the 3-D Sculpture Park artist residency program in Switzerland, AHL Foundation Residency in New York.
Cho’s approach to art-making is largely inspired by the relationship between nature, environment, and the viewer’s perception of nature based on their personal history.
Her works are featured in major collections such as Seoul Municipal Museum and Musée Cantonale des Beaux-Arts du Valais in Switzerland, and in exhibitions such as ‘Nature’s Tempo’ at the Korean cultural services of New York, and ‘Going Green’ in conjunction with Queens Art Express in New York. Passionate about performance art, projects include ‘Sounds of Fragment: Ecological Dreams’ at the Nam June Park Art Center and Seoul Innovation Park.
Currently participating in a fellowship program at BeFantastic Together, TechArt for climate change, Cho holds a BA and MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London and an MA in Art Education from Columbia University. After obtaining her MFA, she taught visual art courses as well as a theory at universities in Korea.
Medium: Oil and pigments on 640gsm cotton rag paper
Size (cm): 70x100cm
Year: 2021
Elly Cho has exhibited around the world and holds numerous awards. Her art explores the intersection between nature, the environment and human behaviour, across various mediums including mixed media, video and performance art.
She approachs the subject matter of cultural landscapes in narrative form, and these narratives often relate to her own life experiences and memories. In her video work, She has used familiar landscapes that stimulate viewers to engage with an imaginative response.
Her recent research about color, nature and mental health brought new body of work that explores the relationship between ecology and human existence. By drawing on colors and movement of nature, aesthetic of being, and poetry in nature. She trys to mimic the movement of the species and then expanding the drawing to a more imaginary scene of poeticism. She feels that nature is a place where everyone feels to be part of and even if we are all apart from each other, being in nature, makes us together and connected. Through her work, She seek to instill in the viewer a highly charged but nostalgic awareness of things long since past. She aim to experiment further, encouraging political engagement that allows both artwork and environment to jointly contribute to current artistic discourse.
Cho’s awards include “Times Square Midnight Moment” in New York, Excellence Award in Poetry Writing from Excellence Award in Poetry Writing from Samteo Literary organization in Korea, Myers Community Art Project Award from Columbia University in New York, and a residency with the 3-D Sculpture Park artist residency program in Switzerland, AHL Foundation Residency in New York.
Cho’s approach to art making, is largely inspired by the relationship between nature,
environment and the viewer’s perception to nature based on their personal history.
Her works are featured in major collections such as Seoul Municipal Museum and Musée Cantonale des Beaux-Arts du Valais in Switzerland, and in exhibitions such as ‘Nature’s Tempo’ at the Korean cultural services of New York, and ‘Going Green’ in conjunction with Queens Art Express in New York. Passionate about performance art, projects include ‘Sounds of Fragment: Ecological Dreams’ at the Nam June Park Art Center and Seoul Innovation Park.
Currently participating in a fellowship program at BeFantastic Together, techart for climate change, Cho holds a BA and MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London and an MA in Art Education from Columbia University. After obtaining her MFA, she taught visual art courses as well as theory at universities in Korea.
I am an artist with painting and drawing at the heart of my practice. Central to my practice is the use of pure colour which I make from pigments. My work has always been about place, specific visited places in response to particular landscape features that have had a profound effect on me, mostly in tidal and coastal areas and so distinctly understood by drawing directly. I use drawing and painting as a visual language to express my most inner thoughts and emotions.
2014-2015: Bath Spa University, MA Fine Art
2011-2014: the University of the West of England, Bristol. BA (Hons) Drawing and Applied Arts (1st class)
2009-2011: Stroud College, Access to Higher Education in Art and Design (distinction).
Taylor, D: Vision of Landscape, Clare Thatcher, Beep Painting Prize Biennial, 2020
Taylor D: Sense of Place, Clare Thatcher Solo Show, Tubes Artist Gallery 2020
Taylor D: Clare Thatcher, TAG 5 Tubes Artist Gallery, 2020
Taylor D: Clare Thatcher, Painters Tubes Gallery Showcase, 2019
Clare Thatcher, Artist Talk Magazine Issue 3, 2018
Feature of Landscape, Clare Thatcher, John Moores Painting Prize, 2018
ociety of Women Artists 2021, 160th Annual Open Exhibition, Online
Figurative Art Now 2021, online show by Federation of British Artists of the mall Galleries London.
London Art Biennale-5th Edition 2021, Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, London.
Without Borders 2021, Traveling books/works on paper project, Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
Beep Painting Prize Biennial 2020, Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
Jackson’s Open Painting Prize 2019, Affordable Art Fair, Hampstead
Academician Candidate Exhibition 2019, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
PAINT, PS Mirabel 2019, Open Painting Exhibition, Manchester.
John Moores Painting Prize 2018, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Twice as Nice, PS Mirabel 2018 Open Exhibition, Manchester.
NN Contemporary Art Biennial Open Exhibition 2018, Northampton.
The Narrative in Motion 2018, curated by Cylinder Gallery, Menier Gallery, London.
Annual Open Exhibition 2017, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
Who’s afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue? 2017 works on paper, Kofi Space, PMX, Hasselt, Belgium.
Annual Open exhibition 2016, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
Liminal Space-thresholds of mind and place 2016, two person show with Shirley Sharp, Christmas Steps Gallery, Bristol.
Artmasters 2015, MA Fine Art Graduates, The OldTruman Brewery, East London.
Annual Open Exhibition 2014, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
Medium: Oil and pigments on 640gsm cotton rag paper
Size (cm): 70x100cm
Year: 2021
Space of Transition discusses the effect climate change and in particular global warming is having on the natural world. It is specifically about the most northern USA State, Alaska, a place I visited in 2019 where I discovered a new world of such vast beauty. A troubling landscape, experiencing temperatures higher than before in the month of May, a place that is constantly shifting. I hope to expose the underlying consequences our actions have on the natural world.
Space of Transition is considered, immediate, compelling and highly relevant, as it was subsequently created during lockdown. An intense period of making for me, tapping into the material realities of the Covid-19 pandemic. A conversation began between an immersion of memories and observational drawings made on location transporting me back to the quiet space of Alaska and capturing what I was feeling emotionally at the moment of making here, in my studio. Drawing on both personal and universal narratives.
I made Space of Transition during a period of deep anxiety, my world suddenly turned upside down, a situation I found myself in forced upon by the pandemic. My painting is about the transitioning from a situation of feeling isolated from everything familiar to the progressive reopening up of our lives again in 2021. Space of Transition is really about isolation and survival reflecting on how quickly the actions of human beings can affect both our personal lives and the natural world.
Painting is emotionally draining but so rewarding, so much of myself are in my works. Painting helped me understand and make visible what I was experiencing, a crossover of two unquantifiable experiences in my life, helping me through the extreme emotions I was feeling at the time. Space of Transition is part of a large body of work completed over the last two years.
We would like to thank everyone who applied for the Sunny Art Prize 2021, we have received a great number of applications from all over the world. The quality and diversity of the artwork submitted and the passion shown by the artists, fill our hearts with warmth and desire to organise the Sunny Art Prize 2022.
OPENING HOURS:
Mon - Thur: 10:00-20:00
Weekend: 10:00-18:00
Friday: Close to the Public
ADDRESS:
Sunny Art Centre, 30 Gray's Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8HR
Chancery Lane Station Central Line
Holborn ( Stop C )
Buses: 17, 46
Theobalds Road / Clerkenwell Rd ( Stop CQ)
Buses: 17, 46
Holborn Circus / Fetter Lane (Stop D)
Buses: 8, N8, N25, N242
Chancery Lane (Stop E)
Buses: 8, 521, N8, N25, N242
JustParkCar / Southampton Buildings Car Park
(Open 24/7)
Holborn Gate Car Park / My Car Parks
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