Artists need encouragement and exposure to the light. A new prize launched by Winsor & Newton and the Paul Smith Foundation is setting out to do just that
The living room of Brittni Warshaw’s small Tokyo apartment is littered with the usual paraphernalia of toddlerdom: toys, games, dolls, colouring books and crayons. But it’s mummy’s painting easel, set up to catch the light from the window, that chiefly holds her three-year-old’s attention.
Rather than shoo her away, 33 year-old Warshaw, a former commercial photographer from Louisiana, US, embraces her daughter Ari’s interest and even invites her to join in.
“When I was making my first body of work early last year, it was great because she would use all the colours I had and would reach with her whole body across the canvas,” Warshaw recalls.
It was only [when I won the prize] that I started actually calling myself an artist
Unorthodox, certainly. But it worked. Last May, Warshaw was selected as one of six winners of a new art competition created by entrepreneur Paul Smith’s Foundation and the UK-based heritage artists’ materials manufacturer, Winsor & Newton.
The winners make for a diverse bunch. They herald from across the globe: from Paris and London to Hong Kong and New York. Creatively, they are no less varied, with their influences ranging from medicine and science with an Afrocentrist bent, through to digital technology seen through the prism of classical still life.
What all the winners share is their status as emerging artists. The W&N x PSF Art Prize exists to support creative professionals who are in the first decade of their career. To that end, winners receive £1,000 from the Paul Smith Foundation, plus up to £1,000 worth of materials from Winsor & Newton’s wide selection of fine art and graphic art products.
Equally valuable for up-and-coming artists, the prize brings profile. Over a four-month period, for example, each had a piece of their work hanging prominently in one of Paul Smith’s flagship stores. Footage of their respective working processes also provides the subject of a recently released short film by the art cinematographer Mae Sass.
“Our mission is to help creative people develop the professional skills they need to sustain a career for the long term,” explains Martha Mosse, director at Paul Smith’s Foundation. “With that in mind, this prize was designed to help emerging artists grow their audience both locally and internationally, as well as align them with local figures of industry.”
For Warshaw, who studied fine art at university but only returned to painting in early 2024, the boost to her profile has proved a boon. Her abstract painting, entitled To Add Another (a reference to her decision not to have a second child), was seen by thousands of shoppers in downtown Tokyo. Visits to her website and social pages have also soared.
It’s important for us all to be looking around us wherever we are and seeing the joy, the beauty, the issues and the questions
The prize has also had a marked effect on her confidence. When the email about the prize landed in her inbox, in fact, she remembers being “so shocked” at the news that she made her husband re-read the message to be sure it was true.
“While I was taking it really seriously beforehand, it still felt like: ‘Oh, that’s Brittni just painting in the living room,” she recalls. “But the prize solidified things … it was only then that I started actually calling myself an artist.”
Beyond supporting the individual winners themselves, the prize has wider aspirations. The clue is in its over-arching theme: Finding Inspiration Everywhere. At a time when arts budgets are being squeezed, the fact that the artistic impulse is available to all without cost is as inspiring as it is timely.
The lesson? To keep our eyes open to the world’s wonders, says Holly Shires, senior creative content manager at Winsor & Newton: “It’s important for us all to be looking around us wherever we are and seeing the joy, the beauty, the issues and the questions.”
Inspiration, like beauty, moreover, resides in the eye of the beholder. Anything can get our creative juices flowing, even the hard times and ugly stuff. In Warshaw’s case, for example, it was the mental health ups and downs of motherhood that initially drove her to pick up her paintbrush.
Fellow prize winner Adam de Boer tells a similar story. The son of a Dutch-Indonesian, whose grandfather left his native Java for southern California after being imprisoned during the second world war, the Los Angeles-based painter draws extensively on the “trauma of dislocation” in his work. His south-east Asian heritage also inspire his technique, particularly in his use of a traditional Indonesia form of wax-resistant textile design known as batik.
'You can find inspiration in everything,' said Paul Smith. 'It’s all there for you, free of charge.' Image: Paul Smith store at Coal Drops Yard, London
“If you tune in, you’ll find everything you need right there,” he observes of finding inspiration. “It’s just about allowing yourself to be affected and giving yourself time to reflect.”
For the same reason, Paul Smith never leaves home without a “little orange book” in his pocket. Be it at work, on holiday, in a gallery: if something catches his eye, into his trusty notebook it goes. Over time, these notebook jottings and “funny little drawings” become the new collections for which he is famous.
“You can find inspiration in everything,” he says, echoing de Boer’s observation and the wider message of the prize. “It’s all there for you, free of charge.”
- Find out more about the Paul Smith’s Foundation here
- Details for applications to the 2025 Winsor & Newton + Paul Smith’s Foundation International Art Prize can be found here
Main image: Paul Smith store at Coal Drops Yard, London
