The award was again for drawing and the five short-listed artists, Andrew Cheetham, Caroline Hussey, Iain Sharpe, Michael Shaw and Madeleine Strindberg produced a great variety of styles. The judges were looking for a body of work, whilst also being mindful that the bursary is awarded, essentially, for "career development" and to support the development of an artist's ongoing work. Their task was not an easy one and they gave very serious consideration to the contenders, making their eventual choice - Michael Shaw, for his 'animated drawings'.

Michael studied Fine Art at Leeds Metropolitan University and he did a PhD in sculpture at the University of Gloucestershire. His recent work has used computer software to show the 'visual qualities' of drawing, using animation techniques 'to simulate the documentation of a drawing being created'. His view is that this can "significantly extend the language of drawing because of its subtleties of mark making, the kinetic aspect and the scalability of the final drawing through screen based or projected delivery". He entered two works, 'There But Not There' and 'Doodle'. The first explores what he describes as one of the fundamental aims of drawing "creating the illusion of three dimensional space on a flat plane", with the continuous mapping of form through moving pencil lines creating "a sculptural sketch of what might be, there, but not there".

Michael describes Doodle as achieving "lifelike depictions of media including pencil, rubber, charcoal, pen and ink and the potential subtlety of marks such as smudges, overdrawing, traces, and bleeds".

 

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