September 2025
Barbara Walker wins
Sky Arts Award for Visual Arts
In a celebratory occasion at the Roundhouse on 16th September, in a gathering of movers and shakers and doers in all the fields of the arts, Barbara Walker MBE RA was given the accolade of Sky Arts Award Winner for the Visual Arts.
Barbara was the first recipient of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award in 2017, going on to produce her exhibition entitled Vanishing Points at Hastings Contemporary. The Sky Arts Award was timely and just recognition of her career retrospective "Being Here" held at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester in 2024. The Evelyn Williams Trust toasts her success and her continued commitment to making art that both confronts and draws us in. ATV Today reported on the conclusion of the awards:
"As Madness roared through their encore and confetti fell on the Roundhouse floor, the message was clear: the arts are not a luxury but a necessity, and awards nights like these are both celebration and plea — a call to remember that, in the end, culture is what connects us."
Image taken at the exhibition Barbara Walker Being Here at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, 4th October 2024 - 26th January 2025
Isabel Rock:
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold
27 September 2025 – 15 March 2026
This autumn, Hastings Contemporary presents Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold, a bold new exhibition by Isabel Rock, portraying a surreal post-human future shaped by the forces of climate collapse.
Through large-scale, colourful drawings, printmaking, sculpture, and short stories, artist and climate activist Isabel Rock imagines a new world order populated by mutant hybrid species – giant slugs, feral rats, colossal pigs, and multi-limbed crocodiles – who have inherited the ruins of human civilisation. Confronting pressing geopolitical questions – of capitalism, climate change, and repressive power structures – Isabel’s mischievous language of humour, drama and fanciful characters brings a lightness of touch that in no way belies the seriousness of her concerns.
April 2025
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025
Evelyn Williams Drawing Prize 2025
The call for entries to the 2025 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition is now live.
The closing date for entries is 17th June 2025 by 5p.m.
Full details for artists wishing to submit work can be found here: Entry Portal for the TBW Drawing Prize
The Evelyn Williams Trust is excited to be participating with Drawing Projects UK and Trinity Buoy Wharf to offer a further biennial award this year of £10,000.
In late July, artists who have been selected for exhibition in the Trinity Buoy Wharf 2025 exhibition and who can demonstrate a track record through other exhibition work, commissions or publications, will receive details about submitting an exhibition proposal. This will be based on their art practice, offering a possibility of extending their work in the area of broadly defined drawing and creating an exhibition of the resultant work. The proposal will be assessed by a panel and the successful artist and exhibition proposal will be announced along with the other awards at the opening of the exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London on 9 October 2025.
The TBW exhibition following its showing in London then tours widely in the UK until July 2026.
Past holders of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award are Barbara Walker MBE, Penny McCarthy, Roland Hicks, and Isabel Rock, whose exhibitions were held in partnership with Hastings Contemporary.
Isabel Rock’s solo exhibition will open in October 2025 at Hastings Contemporary.
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024. Image: Drawing Projects UK
September 2024
Hospital Rooms Auction
When we were approached over the summer to donate a piece of Evie’s work for an online auction in support of Hospital Rooms, the charity that brings art to mental health settings, we were delighted to do so.
We are even happier to say that Evie’s drawing, The Hand, went to a very happy new owner, contributing to a total of over £1,000,000 raised by the Hospital Rooms’ 2024 exhibition and auction.
The charity has a clear impact statement which we fully support:
“We bring the highest-quality artwork and creative activity into mental health spaces, working with acclaimed artists to catalyse a fundamental shift in the way we consider and treat people with the most difficult of mental health diagnoses.”
We are proud to be associated with them.
The exhibition and auction received extensive coverage in Elephant Magazine, Art Newspaper, the Financial Times and social media.
May 2024
Sarah Sowerby, former Trustee
We are very sad to announce the death of one of our Trustees, on 26th April 2024.
Sarah was one of Evie’s two daughters and had contributed much to the work of the Trust, particularly over the last few years.
Shortly before she died, she wrote these words about the paintings of her mother that meant so much to her.
“My mother was renowned for using the human form to heavily influence her work. She often used the interaction of one person to another to demonstrate relationships. In her personal life it was all about family. So it was inevitable that the two worlds would combine.
These two pictures, show the tenderness of touch between an adult and a child, about exploration between two beings. I like to think it is me and my mum – who knows, and it doesn’t matter. Anyone can look at and imagine their own narrative.”
