The work of eleven recent graduates from BA (Hons) Fine Art and BA (Hons) Photography is now on show at Aon Plc headquarters as part of Aon’s annual Community Art Award.
Aon’s Art Committee visited the University’s end of year show to select graduating students from Fine Art and Photography to take part in the programme designed to help recent graduates transition from student life to the commercial art world. All selected artists received a cash award and will have their work on display in Aon’s client offices. For the first time this year work will also go on display in Aon’s Leeds and Manchester offices with plans to display in the Glasgow office in 2020, bringing the art back to the cities where the students studied.
James Allinson
The chosen graduates were invited along to Aon’s headquarters in the afternoon of 3 October for an introduction to the programme, including three mentoring sessions from art experts. They also had the opportunity to speak about their personal development and how the programme can help them achieve their goals. Each artist has been offered an Aon mentor for the next twelve months as well as the chance to attend other face to face events and Webex mentoring sessions.
Amelia Wood
In the evening Nathan Shanaghy, Chief Operating Officer for Aon UK Limited, officially opened Aon Art Award collection for around 150 invited guests, including the artists, their friends, family, Aon colleagues, external guests and clients.
Lauren Brown
Graduates selected from BA (Hons) Fine Art are Amelia Francis Wood, Benjamin Campbell, Denisa Kreitzer, George Welch, Josh Newsome, Lauren Brown and Lewis Andrews.
Anthea Spivey, James Allinson, Jason Sojka, and Victoria Nash were selected from BA (Hons) Photography.
Denisa Kreitzer
The programme provides workshops and mentoring for one year, and at the end of the twelve-month period, the graduate’s artwork is sold via an online and live auction, with all proceeds going back to the artist. In addition two cash prizes are awarded: a £5,000 prize to the artist selected by an external panel of judges as the most promising, and a £2,000 prize for Aon employees’ favourite piece of work.
Find out more about the Aon Community Art Award and see all the selected artwork here.
Anthea Spivey