Now, three young Scottish artists -- Jennifer Fergie, Rachel Adams, and Richard Cook -- have been plucked from relative obscurity to be among 20 of Charles Saatchi’s latest group of artists dubbed among the “most imaginative and talented” to have graduated from an art school this summer.
The three artists have been picked to be part of the Saatchi Gallery’s New Sensations exhibition at the A Foundation in Shoreditch, a show that will put them on the national stage.
The exhibition shares the name of Saatchi’s most influential and controversial show, 1997’s Sensation, which helped launch the careers of artists such as Hirst, Emin, and Chris Ofili.
Glasgow School of Art graduate Jennifer Fergie, 21, has been selected along with Rachel Adams, 24, and Richard Cook, 23, who both attended Edinburgh College of Art.
The three will now show new work alongside 17 others at the exhibition, opening in London in October, and be exposed to the international art market at a time when one of the key art fairs, Frieze, takes place in London.
Ms Fergie and Mr Cook work primarily with photography, while Ms Adams produces sculptures and drawings.
All three applied to the Saatchi exhibition online, as did hundreds of others.
Ms Fergie uses her photography skills to make various objects appears as if they are falling or suspended in the air.
“It’s very exciting: all the works are sellable as well and the gallery don’t take any money from that, and that is so good because we are all new talent,” she said.
“It’s my first exhibition since art school and I know a lot of important people will be coming, not only collectors and galleries but other artists.”
Richard Cook also uses photography in his art, and he will be showing five separate pieces and an sculptural work.
“When you apply to something like Saatchi, you apply hoping to get it, but not expecting it at all, because it’s so prestigious,” he said.
“It was a big surprise, and I haven’t exhibited since college, so it’s exciting. There’s also a chance that Saatchi himself will buy some of your work.”
Rebecca Wilson, head of development at the Saatchi Gallery, said: “The exhibition offers collectors and dealers a wonderful opportunity to see some of the best art being made by young people in the UK, and for London-bound gallerists, collectors, and critics it offers a fantastic chance to see work being made across the UK, from Dublin to Edinburgh, Newcastle to Brighton. I am thrilled that there are three students from Scottish universities.”
The Saatchi Gallery launched a prize in 2007 in a bid to find the best emerging talent from the UK’s art schools. Four finalists from the 20 in the show have already been chosen, all from London art schools: Oliver Beer, Andreas Blank, Nick Goss and Regine Petersen.
This year’s judges were the leading contemporary artist Gavin Turk; Ralph Rugoff, the director of the Hayward Gallery; Louisa Buck, an art critic; and Alison Jacques, owner of Alison Jacques Gallery in London.
RECLUSIVE COLLECTOR
Charles Saatchi was born in Iraq in 1943. Four years later he and his brother, Maurice, were brought to Britain by their parents.
Leaving education at the age of 17, he and his brother formed Saatchi & Saatchi and became one of the most famous advertising firms of the 1980s.
He and his first wife, Doris, an American-born art writer, staged art shows at the Saatchi Gallery in London’s St John’s Wood in the mid-1980s.
Saatchi staged the first wholesale shows of artists such as Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Jeff Koons in Britain.
In the 1990s, Saatchi started selling his American art and buying contemporary British works.
In 1997, his Royal Academy show Sensation included a portrait of Myra Hindley made up of children’s handprints.
Reclusive, and now married to cook Nigella Lawson, left, he was asked why he doesn’t attend his own exhibition openings, and said: “I don’t go to other people’s openings, so I extend the same courtesy to my own.”
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