Maple was one of five shortlisted artists (each awarded £2500), and now receives the £25,000 first prize, announced on 4 March. She joins an elite list of previous winners, including David Hockney (1967), Lisa Milroy (1989), Peter Doig (1993), Keith Coventry (2010) and Rose Wylie (2014). Sir Peter Blake, winner of the junior prize in 1961, is patron of the award.
Maple's 2020 painting The Common – which she described as a ‘meeting place, an intersection, people seemingly aware of each other, but minds elsewhere – all sharing an open space' - was chosen from 67 paintings selected from around 3,000 submissions for an exhibition showing at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery until 27 June. A virtual tour of the exhibition is available here. Her winning painting will be acquired by the Gallery to join its world-class collection, while Kathryn will now also have a future solo exhibition.
Speaking about her time at Brighton, Kathryn said: “I originally applied for the Painting BA at Brighton, but somehow got side tracked and ended up doing Printmaking. Three years of experimenting with all the different processes meant I could take a really investigative approach and explore the possibilities of combining different processes and techniques.