Kathryn Maple
{{Short description|Contemporary artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
Kathryn Maple (born 1989) is an English artist based in South London who has won the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition and John Moores Painting Prize.
Early life
Maple was born in Canterbury, Kent, in 1989, and raised in Maidstone.{{Cite news |last=Wise |first=Louis |date=18 March 2021 |title='I went into a cold flurry and fell down my steps' – painter Kathryn Maple on her John Moores win |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/18/painter-kathryn-maple-john-moores-win-covid-hockney |access-date=9 December 2024 |newspaper=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |title=Kathryn Maple: A Year of Drawings |url=http://www.anomie-publishing.com/kathryn-maple-a-year-of-drawings/ |access-date=12 December 2024 |website=Anomie Publishing |language=en-US}} She graduated from the University of Brighton in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Printmaking. She then studied at the Royal Drawing School.{{Cite web|url=https://lyndseyingram.com/artists/127-kathryn-maple/biography/|title=Biography: Kathryn Maple|website=Lyndsey Ingram|accessdate=8 December 2024}}
Career
Maple has won the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition on two occasions: once in 2014 and once in 2016. Her winning painting in 2014 was Fat Boy's Diner, which depicts a cafe near Trinity Buoy Wharf in London.{{Cite web |last=Wise |first=Louis |date=24 August 2014 |title=Watercolour competition: Southern comforts |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/watercolour-competition-southern-comforts-v53wlbbmpkw |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241209213035/https://www.thetimes.com/article/watercolour-competition-southern-comforts-v53wlbbmpkw |archive-date=9 December 2024 |access-date=9 December 2024 |website=The Times |language=en}} She used the £10,000 prize money to travel to India. The trip inspired her winning 2016 entry, Sandy Shoes. What Maple describes as its "part real, part imagined" scene is the product of a visit to the island of Vypin.{{Cite web |last=Wise |first=Louis |date=27 August 2016 |title=Watercolour Competition winners look to the east |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/art/article/winners-look-to-the-east-qzhwz87d8 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241208210343/https://www.thetimes.com/culture/art/article/winners-look-to-the-east-qzhwz87d8 |archive-date=8 December 2024 |access-date=8 December 2024 |website=The Times |language=en |quote=Congratulations to Kathryn Maple, who wins for the second time in three years with Sandy Shoes [...] When Kathryn Maple won this award in 2014, she used the money to travel, to gain inspiration for her work.}}
Maple won the John Moores Painting Prize in March 2021 with her work The Common. Judge Michelle Williams Gamaker commented that the painting "struck a chord during the judging [...] perhaps because it depicts the very thing we are currently unable to share" due to Covid restrictions, and that it "embodies the deeply social nature of humans".{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Mark |last2= |first2= |date=4 March 2021 |title=Painting of a throng of humanity wins John Moores art prize |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/04/kathryn-maple-painting-throng-humanity-wins-john-moores-art-prize |access-date=8 December 2024 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite news |date=4 March 2021 |title=Kathryn Maple's 'deeply social' scene wins John Moores Painting Prize |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56236995 |access-date=9 December 2024 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}
Maple subsequently presented a solo exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, which hosts the prize. She is only the second of the prize's winners to do so, after 2019's winner Jacqui Hallum.{{Cite news |date=2 December 2022 |title=Walker Art Gallery to host art prize winner Kathryn Maple's first show |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63834967 |access-date=8 December 2024 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}} The Common is on permanent display at the gallery. Maple told The Guardian, "You always hope your work will get into a national collection [...] so you can return to see it when you’re 80 with your friends".
Maple is a participant in the Artists Support Pledge, an initiative where artists sell their work, pledging to buy the work of another artist once their proceeds reach £1000. She has said it helped her with bills, and enabled her to buy three pieces by other artists.
Publications
References
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Category:21st-century British women artists
Category:Alumni of the University of Brighton