Call for entries Wells Art Contemporary 2024 Gallery Show

Established in 2012 by artists for artists, Wells Art Contemporary (WAC) is an international opportunity for innovative visual artits working in all genres.

Based in Wells, Somerset, the annual WAC exhibition is a highlight of the city’s cultural life.

Now in its 14th year, the WAC exhibition will take place in August 2024.

WAC allows UK and international artists to put their work before a prestigious panel of judges. Selected entries are exhibited in the remarkable Gothic spaces of Wells Cathedral and seen by up to 50,000 people annually. They are automatically entered for a wide range of awards, including cash prizes, a residency, mentoring and more. Work may be offered for sale.

WAC is open to all artists over the age of 18 working around the world in all media and styles.

WAC provides two ways for artists to showcase work:

• the Gallery Show, which presents artworks in a temporary white-wall gallery in the Cathedral cloisters,
• the Installation Show, which invites site-specific proposals for installation within the body of the Cathedral and its grounds. This year the Installation show is awarding the twenty selected artists a £200 bursary. Both shows run concurrently.  

THE GALLERY SHOW

The WAC Gallery is a unique exhibition space installed along three sides of Wells Cathedral’s Cloisters, where a white-wall gallery is built to display work. It forms part of the main visitor route round the Cathedral and can be very busy, especially in summer.

Artwork in any medium will be considered for exhibition in the Gallery Show, including painting, drawing, sculpture, print, photo, video, digital, textile, mixed media, and more.

The Gallery Show will be selected by three distinguished artists:

• Tessa Coleman, a figurative painter who uses representational subject matter to explore formal painterly concerns. She has exhibited regularly at the Threadneedle Art Prize and The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, as well as other gallery exhibitions both in the UK and internationally.
• Katherine Jones RA, a contemporary British artist who combines painting and traditional printmaking techniques. Jones is a visiting lecturer in Fine Art and Printmaking across the UK and Europe, and her work is held in the collections of the V&A Prints And Drawings Collection among others.
• Shanti Panchal, known for his watercolour paintings, he studied at the Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay and Byam Shaw School of Art, London. Panchal has been an artist-in-residence at the British Museum and won the Second Prize at the John Ruskin Prize in 2019.

The deadline to enter the Gallery Show is Thursday 9th May 2024, 5pm.