VERONICA DOMINGO ALONSO
WINS THE 2013 ITZAL AKTIBOA PRIZE
October 21, 2013
Verónica Domingo Alonso, of Getxo (Bizkaia), is the winner of the 2013 Itzal Aktiboa Prize for Young Talent in Contemporary Art.
Congratulating her on behalf of the jury, Pantxoa Etchegoin, its president and the director of the Basque Cultural Institute,Àâ'' remarked on "the quality of her work, her mastery of technique, the link made between painting and poetry, and the maturity of her style".
Aged 24 and a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Verónica has just completed an M.A in Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts in the U.K. For the Itzal Aktiboa Prize competition, she submitted a diptych of black ink on paper entitled "Entre los pliegues de la luz" (Between the folds of the light), created using the Monoprint technique and inspired by the writings of Basque poet Pablo González de Langarika.
The 2,000 euros prize is designed to reward a young artist of 35 years of age or less, living and working in the Basque Country. Some 25 artists took part in the competition, which was organised by Itzal Aktiboa in collaboration with the Basque Cultural Institute.
The Saint Jean Pied de Port Prize was awarded to Thomas Loyatho...
The second prize, named for the town of Saint Jean Pied de Port and amounting to 800 euros, was awarded to Thomas Loyatho, age 29, of Hasparren (Labourd), for his painting "Arrasortzea". The jury congratulated him on "the painterly quality" of his work, drawing on "the concept of renaissance through the reinterpretation of current imagery via a process of defiguration and deconstruction through memory in motion".
...and the Nautilus-Lanzarote Prize to Béranger Laymond
In third place, 31-year-old Béranger Laymond of Bidart (Labourd) won the Nautilus-Lanzarote Prize, consisting of an artist's residence in Lanzarote (Canary Islands), for his installation "En attendant mieux" ("Waiting for something better"). The scaled-down representation of a utopian city, made out of foam board, impressed the jury by the "originality of its installation, its occupation and dis-occupation of space, and its imaginary architectural design".
Alongside Pantxoa Etchegoin, the members of the jury were Marie-Claude Berger, art historian; Frédéric Duprat, Director of the Bayonne School of Art; Christine Etchevers, artist; Michel de Jaureguiberry, collector; Ismael Manterola, art historian and professor at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao; Iñaki Olazabal, sculptor; and Antón Piñel, collector and patron of the arts.
