Write on Art 2024 Winners

The Paul Mellon Centre (PMC) and Art UK are delighted to announce this year’s winners of the 2024 Write on Art competition. The competition, now in its seventh year, was created to encourage an interest in art and art history amongst young people aged 14–18 years old across the UK, inviting them to write in response to a piece of artwork on Art UK’s website.

This year’s judges – Sally Shaw MBE, Director of Firstsite in Colchester and Enuma Okoro, writer, curator and Financial Times columnist – had the unenviable task of selecting three winners in each category from a collection of insightful, engaging and inspiring shortlisted pieces of writing.

As judge Sally Shaw says: “Writing can be challenging. Looking at and then writing about art even more so. However, when we really stop to spend time doing just that, lots of really magical things start to happen. We look at the world with more curiosity, rather than just accepting things at face value. We work out how these particular views (the artist’s and ours combined) make us feel. We think about that for a while. And then we make every attempt to share that with others using a wide landscape of words from which to choose. There are so many variables. That is the beauty of writing about art – it is about unique experiences, visions, choices and languages; something to be enjoyed by lots of people. Reading the shortlisted essays for this year's Write On Art competition reminded me of all that and I am extremely grateful to everyone who took part. Well done all the writers, supporters, teachers, artists and museums”.

We had over two hundred submissions this year which took many forms including essays, letters and poetry covering themes ranging from politics and gender to grief and a sense of place. This year also saw the broadest range of artworks selected so far in the competition, from sculptures to paintings, photographs to prints, created by artists from diverse backgrounds and time periods.

Judge Enuma Okoro commented: "It gives me deep hope to know that young people are engaging with art and are motivated to reflect and write on it. Art is a powerful form of storytelling that can shape narratives and mindsets. It teaches us how to see and how to recognise the connection between seeing, feeling, thinking and then, hopefully, doing. Opportunities such as Write on Art remind us all that reflecting on art is a vital pathway to strengthening our visual literacy. It was a pleasure to serve as a judge for the 2024 competition and to read the thoughtful considerations of these young minds. Many of the writers showed remarkable insight in their essays, offering keen observations on how art can be a window to how we think about the world around us. Congratulations to all who were part of this competition".

On Saturday 7 September, the shortlisted writers and their supporters (parents, carers and teachers), PMC staff and judge, Sally Shaw, came together for an award ceremony at the Mary Ward Centre in Stratford to celebrate the young writers’ incredible achievements. The first-place winners in each category each received £300, second place winners £200 and third place winners £100.

Sarah Victoria Turner, Director of PMC, joined us on Saturday to present the younger category prizes and commented: “All the applicants in the Write on Art competition demonstrated the power of using art to communicate about the world around us. The creativity and emotional force of the writing submitted this year was really remarkable. Meeting the shortlisted writers at this year’s award ceremony made me feel very optimistic about the next generation who will go on to champion the importance of visual and creative arts in our society. Their essays were brimming with curiosity and originality in every line”.

Chief Executive of Art UK, Andrew Ellis, also reflected: “As always it was such a joy to read the winning essays in this year’s Write on Art competition. To start with, it is always fascinating to see what artworks from Art UK are chosen. This year’s selection was particularly intriguing. But the real delight is in the clarity of expression, the brave insights and the passionate, often uncompromising, views held by the authors. Huge congratulations to all our prizewinners and indeed to everyone who ventured to send in an entry”.

You can read all six of the winning essays on the PMC website and the Art UK website.

Year 10/11 Category

First prize: Azzurra Mitchell

Second prize: Nancy Edwards

Third prize: Eve Williams

Shortlisted Writers:

Eleanor Miles, Orla Maeve Black, Thurston Blackburn, Daria Svirskaya, Nancy Edwards, Theo Jones, Costanza Pascuzzi, Ellerker Warne

Year 12/13 Category

First prize: Amelie Roscoe

Second prize: Flora Dodd

Third prize: Evie Wildish

Shortlisted Writers:

Michael Healey, Oskar Warren, Heloise Mathy, Aniela Streeter, Tara Chetty Audit, Amara O'Neill, Liberty Bowden

Submissions for the 2025 prize will open in January 2025.