Jacqui Hallum, King and Queen of Wands, 2017
Devon-based artist Jacqui Hallum has been announced as the winner of the 2018 John Moores Painting Prize with her ink-on-cotton work King and Queen of Wands.
In her painting, Hallum draws on imagery ranging from medieval woodcuts and leaded glass windows to tarot cards and Art Nouveau children’s book illustrations. She works across a number of loose cotton sheets, staining and dying them with inks (drawing ink, graffiti ink and squid ink). The sheets move between Hallum’s studio and garden throughout this process, before they are grouped and pinned together, concealing and revealing themselves to create a multi-part work.
Jacqui wins £25,000. The four other prizewinning artists – Tom Howse, Joseph O’Rourke, Shanti Panchal and Billy Crosby, win £2500 each.
All five prizewinning works, plus some 55 more entries for this year’s prize, can be viewed as part of the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition, which opens to the public on Sat 14 July.