Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 Call for Entries

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 is now open for entries, offering drawing practitioners around the world the opportunity to showcase their work in the UK’s leading open exhibition dedicated to drawing with awards of a total value of £27,000.Artists and drawing practitioners worldwide are invited to submit up to three drawings for consideration by the distinguished Selection Panel. The annual open exhibition has a longstanding reputation for celebrating excellence in contemporary drawing practice and is led by its founding Director, Professor Anita Taylor.

Drawings shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 eligible for the following awards:

• First Prize: £8,000
• Second Prize: £5,000
• Student Award: £2,000
• Evelyn Williams Drawing Award: £10,000
• Working Drawing Award £2,000

All selected works will be included in a high-profile exhibition that will launch at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London on 9 October 2025 and then tours widely in the UK until July 2026.The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication and a programme of educational and engagement activities, including a symposium at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

The deadline to register for entry for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is 17 June 2025, 5pm. Following online registration, all entrants submit their artworks to one of the Collection Centres located across the UK. All works submitted are seen in person by the Selection Panel.

The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 exhibition will be launched at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London on 9 October 2025 and will be on show to the public until 21 October 2025. The exhibition will then tour to a number of venues, and until the summer of 2025. The Exhibition Launch & Awards Ceremony will take place at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London on Wednesday 8 October 2025. Everyone with drawings selected for the exhibition will be invited to this event. A fully illustrated publication will be produced to accompany the exhibition. Educational and engagement programmes will accompany the exhibition, including a symposium at Trinity Buoy Wharf on Thursday 9 October.

Exhibition address:

Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place, London E14 0JW

Exhibition open to the public:

Thursday 9 October – Friday 21 October 2025

The Buoy Store, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London E14 0JW

Followed by an exhibition tour, venues to be announced shortly.

Fiona Bradley OBE: She started her curatorial career at Tate Liverpool and the Hayward Gallery, London, and has been Director of Fruitmarket in Edinburgh since 2003. At Fruitmarket, she has overseen a dramatic rise in audiences and a major expansion and improvement project that doubled the size of the building, improving access and adding new spaces including the inspirational new Warehouse. Fiona’s programme at Fruitmarket has included exhibitions of work by major Scottish and international artists including Leonor Antunes, Phyllida Barlow, Karla Black, Louise Bourgeois, Martin Boyce, Stan Douglas, Ellen Gallagher, Eva Hesse, William Kentridge, Jim Lambie, Lee Lozano, Ibrahim Mahama, Howardena Pindell, Cai Guo Qiang, Roman Signer and Barry Le Va. She has worked in the public realm, bringing art to audiences where they are with Martin Creed's Work 1059, a work of permanent public sculpture on Edinburgh's historic Scotsman Steps, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Night Walk for Edinburgh, an interactive, site-specific video work for smartphone. Fiona was a member of the jury for the Turner Prize and the Paul Hamlyn Award in 2007; the Woon Foundation Painting and Sculpture Art Prize in 2015; the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2016; and the Kleinwort Hambros Emerging Artist Prize in 2019 and 2021. In 2011 she was the curator for Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale with Karla Black; and in 2019 was a member of the Selection Committee for the British Pavilion (selecting Cathy Wilkes). She was a member of the Imperial War Museum Contemporary Commissioning Committee between 2015 and 2024. She was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in 2018 and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh and an Honorary Professor in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Kieran Long: Since February 2024, Kieran Long has been the Director of Amos Rex, a contemporary art museum established in Helsinki that opened in 2018. Kieran was previously Director of ArkDes, the National Centre for Architecture and Design in Stockholm, Sweden (2017-2024), and the Keeper of the department of Design, Architecture and Digital at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He is a non-executive director of V&A Dundee. His career includes roles as a curator, museum director, broadcaster, and teacher. He is an award-winning writer in the fields of art, architecture and design.

Soheila Sokhanvari: Soheila Sokhanvari is a British/Iranian artist, born in Shiraz, whose multimedia work cultivates a non-uniform practice, and her works deal with contemporary political landscapes with a focus on pre-revolutionary Iran 1979. She is drawn to events and traumas that linger in the collective consciousness or cause mass amnesia. Soheila first graduated in Biochemistry in 1986 and worked as a cytogeneticist from 1987 and as a research scientist for Cambridge University from 1998-2005 when she took a leap of faith to follow her dreams to become an artist. She studied from 2001-05 part time graduating with a degree in Fine Art and Art History from Anglia Ruskin University, followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2006, finally graduating with an MFA Fine Art from Goldsmiths College in 2011.Her solo shows include her (upcoming) retrospective, Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden, Germany (2027); Rebel, Rebel, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark (2024); We Could Be Heroes..., Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge University, (2024); Rebel, Rebel, The Curve, Barbican Centre, London (2022). She is currently in a group exhibition, Pattern: Rhythm and Repetition, Pallant House, Sussex (until 27 April 2025); Contemporary Collecting: David Hockney to Cornelia Parker, British Museum (2024); Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London, UK (2024); Act 3. The Horse and the Power / Hesten og magten, Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, Denmark (2024). Soheila was selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015 (London & touring 2015-16). She was commissioned in 2018 for Victoria Station, London by the Tate Collective and the London Mayor. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has works included in national and international museums as well as private collections, including LACMA, Los Angeles; The New Art Gallery Walsall; The Government Collection with work currently on show at Number 10 Downing St; British Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum; and The Women’s Art Collection, Cambridge University. Her exhibition Rebel, Rebel was nominated for the 2024 Sky Arts Awards celebrating the best of British and Irish culture.