Beck's Futures 2005

Beck's Futures has firmly established itself as one of the most generous and highly regarded national annual arts prizes.  Now in its sixth year, Beck’s Futures was created in 2000 to provide UK-based artists with recognition and support at a crucial stage in their development.

In making this year’s selection, the international panel were drawn to nominees who refused to sit neatly in any one category and displayed a genuine, even eccentric independence and eclecticism.

This year’s winner is Oxford-based Christina Mackie whose work is characterised by an interest in the connection of objects which are specifically made and complete in themselves and how their being and meaning can be transformed by relativity, by their placing.

Her work is driven by an interest in translating the abstract - emotion, thought, intangible sensibility – into a more concrete and visible form. Her haunting installation, incorporating two free standing pieces with video and slide projection, creates an emotional landscape.

The other shortlisted artists are: Luke Fowler, a Glasgow-based artist who presents films which chase thought processes; Lali Chetwynd who presents a filmed performance piece, baroque paintings and flamboyant sculptural work; Donald Urquart who created a unique perfume, Darnley, that supports his piece ‘Another Graveyard’; Ryan Gander shows selected pieces from his ‘An incomplete History of Ideas’ which all hint at endless conceptual and narrative possibilities; Daria Martin presents 16mm film, Closeup Gallery (2004) - part of a trilogy that explores artifice and illusion, fantasy and reality.

Becks Futures will be running from Saturday 28 May to Saturday 9 July at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow.  The galleries are open from Tuesday to Friday: 11am-6pm, Saturday: 10am-6pm, Closed Sunday & Monday.  For more information on this event, email the CCA at gen@cca-glasgow.com