‘Wet, Wings & Woggle’, 2025 © Georgia Dymock.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Founded in 2017, the ACS Studio Prize returned for the ninth 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 and the opportunity to take part in a group exhibition at Gurr Johns.
This year’s judges Victoria Miro, Melanie Gerlis, Hester Westley and Harriet Bridgeman, selected Dymock from a pool of over 250 applicants.
Georgia Dymock is a London-based artist with a BSc in Anthropology from UCL and an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art.
The painter has enjoyed solo shows with JD Malat Gallery and Gillian Jason Gallery, who now represent her. Dymock’s paintings have been featured in group shows in London, Dubai and Shanghai, and in many art
fairs internationally.
In 2024, Dymock was selected for New Contemporaries and was an Ingram Prize finalist. Her work can be found in private collections and at the Museum Inima de Paula, Brazil.
Dymock describes her work as ‘Utopian images of dystopian ruins – a space of chambers, trapdoors, and shifting terrains. My paintings present a vision of a utopia (or perhaps a dystopia?), populated by futuristic models. I draw on imagination and humour to reimagine myself and others through paint, creating scenes that exist in a liminal space – not quite external, but rooted in the subconscious.’
Victoria Miro remarked, Dymock’s work is ‘very resolved. [‘Bubble Brilliance’, 2024] is brilliant.’
Hester Westley said: ‘These paintings are sophisticated and brimming with clever allusion’.
Find out more about the other finalists below:
Camila Barvo is a textile artist based in London. Barvo completed her MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in London, having previously studied design at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. The artist enjoyed her first solo show this past summer as part of her residency with the Sarabande Foundation. Barvo also completed a residency with House of Bandits x Selfridges and has been recognised by the Visual Arts Open, The Eaton Fund and the UK Textile Society.
Harriet Gillett is a painter from East Yorkshire living and working in London. The artist holds an MA in Fine Art from City & Guilds and a BA in English Literature from Edinburgh University. Gillett was a New Contemporary in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Ingram Prize in 2020. Most recently, the painter completed residencies at the Palazzo Monti in Brescia and with Goodeye Projects in London. In 2024, Gillett enjoyed her first solo exhibition with LAMB Gallery in London, and has featured in many group shows across the UK and Italy, as well as in Madrid, Brussels and Shenzhen near Hong Kong.
Fa Razavi is a painter living and working in London. Razavi studied graphic design, sculpture and fashion in Tehran before coming to London for her BA in Fine Art at Middlesex University. The painter has enjoyed several solo exhibitions in London, and in 2025 had her New York debut with a solo show at Palo Gallery. Razavi’s work has featured in group exhibitions in London, Madrid, Brussels and Tehran. Razavi has also completed residencies at the Bomb Factory and at Hoxton Gallery, both in London.
Afonso Rocha is London-based painter who graduated from City & Guilds with an MA Fine Arts in 2024. Previously, Rocha studied fine art at the University of Porto and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 2024, the painter had his first institutional solo show at the Sintra Museum of Arts in Lisbon. Rocha has exhibited regularly in London and internationally, and has been the recipient of several awards and residencies. His work can be found in public and private collections in the UK, Portugal, Spain, France, Brazil and Luxembourg.