Wells Art Contemporary 2024: Installation Show

Exhibition: Wells Cathedral, Somerset, and online.

Awards: up to £2,000 in cash prizes plus artist residency, further gallery exhibitions, mentoring, art materials, etc, and twenty £200 bursaries to be awarded.

Installation Show:

• Calling for: proposals for site-specific installations and interventions. This year, the Installation show is offering a unique opportunity of a £200 bursary, awarded to the twenty selected artists.  
• Selectors: Mary Branson, artist, sculpture and installation artist, Jacquiline Creswell, visual arts advisor; and Victor Ehikhamenor, multimedia artist, photographer and writer.
• Deadline: Monday 11 March 2024, 5pm GMT.

Established in 2012 by artists for artists, Wells Art Contemporary (WAC) is an international opportunity for innovative visual artists working in all genres.

Based in Wells, Somerset, the annual WAC exhibition is a highlight of the city’s cultural life.

Now in its 14th year, the WAC exhibition will take place in August 2024.

WAC allows UK and international artists to put their work before a prestigious panel of judges. Selected entries are exhibited in the remarkable Gothic spaces of Wells Cathedral and seen by up to 50,000 people annually. They are automatically entered for a wide range of awards, including cash prizes, a residency, mentoring and more. Work may be offered for sale.

WAC is open to all artists over the age of 18 working around the world in all media and styles.

WAC provides two ways for artists to showcase work:

• the Gallery Show, which presents artworks in a temporary white-wall gallery in the Cathedral cloisters,
• the Installation Show, which invites site-specific proposals for installation within the body of the Cathedral and its grounds. This year the Installation show is awarding the twenty selected artists a £200 bursary. Both shows run concurrently.  

THE INSTALLATION SHOW

Wells Cathedral is known as one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe. Its interior has wide, high, uncluttered spaces, monumental scissor arches, a fan-vaulted octagonal Chapter House and some of the finest medieval stained glass in the country. On the Cathedral’s South side is a quadrangle of stone-vaulted, medieval cloisters adjacent to the Camery Garden. This is a quiet, contemplative open space with a view of the famous springs from which Wells takes its name.

The Installation Show offers a unique opportunity for artists to create a site-specific artwork for Wells Cathedral. Artists are encouraged to draw inspiration from the Cathedral’s unique building and spirituality, and to be bold and imaginative in their proposals. They can suggest a specific installation site anywhere within the Cathedral boundary, including the Chapter House, and its two outside spaces: the Camery Garden and the Palm Courtyard.

This year, WAC are delighted to announce that for the 2024 edition, the twenty selected artists will each be awarded a £200 bursary.

The 2024 Installation Show will be selected by:

• Mary Branson, known for her large-scale conceptual light works and installations, using landscape and architecture as a backdrop to site determined pieces;

• Jacquiline Creswell, visual arts advisor, working with artists including Antony Gormley, and galleries such as Lisson and Hauser & Wirth;
• Victor Ehikhamenor, multimedia artist, photographer and writer from Nigeria, prolific in producing abstract, symbolic and politically/historically motivated works.