Puzzling Mary, 2023 © Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia. Oil and tempera on washi paper, 105 x 129 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Founded in 2017, the ACS Studio Prize returned for the eighth year to offer one student or recent graduate a £6,000 prize to help contribute to the cost of an artist’s studio in a UK city of their choice.
This year’s judges, pop artist and Royal Academician Allen Jones, artist and Director of the Royal Academy Schools Eliza Bonham Carter, artist and art patron Rosamond Brown and Chairman of ACS, Harriet Bridgeman selected Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia from 300 applicants.
Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia is a figurative painter and installation artist, who recently completed her MFA at the Glasgow School of Art. In 2023, Onwochei-Garcia was selected as a Bloomberg New Contemporary, shortlisted for Robert Walters UK New Artist and awarded the RSA John Kinross Scholarship. Onwochei-Garcia has exhibited in group shows in Lisbon and across the UK. The artist enjoyed her first solo exhibition at the New Glasgow Society last year, and will feature in a solo show at Twilight Contemporary in London later this year.
On what winning the Prize would mean to her, Onwochei-Garcia explained: “It would enable me to develop the latent sculptural element of my practice and establish the allegorical nature of my installation design…The ACS Studio Prize will give me the stability, independence and focus necessary to fully commit and continue to develop ambitious and more advanced bodies of work.”
Rosamond Brown said: “I find her work extremely interesting, there is a slight feeling of Paula Rego (but not too much) I feel she works in a mature way and is very confident.”
Allen Jones said: “Eleanor confidently uses all of her environment – the work is mature and quite interesting…stands out of the normal run.”
Eliza Bonham Carter said: “‘Her work is surprising and very confident. It feels like the images in her work are found in some sense and that gives them a dynamism.”
Alongside winner Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia, four finalists were also chosen by the judges: Thomas Cameron, Lily Hargreaves, Daniel Rey and Amanda Seibæk.
Find out more about the finalists below:
Amanda Seibæk is a painter and printmaker based in Glasgow. Since completing her BA at the Glasgow School of Art in 2022, Seibæk has enjoyed three solo shows in Copenhagen and Glasgow, most recently at Patricia Fleming Gallery earlier this year.
Daniel Rey is a multidisciplinary and performance artist living and working in London. Rey graduated with an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2023, having previously studied architecture in Caracas.
Lily Hargreaves is a London-based artist with a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. In 2022, Hargreaves was awarded the Tooth Travelling Scholarship as well as the BAGT Open Founder’s Prize and has previously been shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize, Studio West’s Now Introducing Prize and the Valerie Beston Award.
Thomas Cameron is a Scottish artist currently based in London. Since completing his MA at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2022, Cameron has exhibited in multiple solo shows with Taymour Grahne Projects as well as in group exhibitions across London, Taiwan and Beijing.