“It is the job of an artist to hold up a mirror to the world and the climate crisis is the biggest threat to humanity we face. There is a rapidly closing window to avert the worst effects of it, apart from direct action I feel that this is the most important thing I can be doing… My practice of the last few years has become increasingly focused on an imaginative, surreal vision of the world after climate breakdown has wreaked its havoc. Recent drawings have a strong narrative looking at systems of commerce, power structures, the complexities of desire, objects of value, the fallibility of human nature and the enterprising charm of human endeavour.”
Isabel Rock
The 2023 award was selected by Nicholas Usherwood, Chair of Trustees of the Evelyn Williams Trust, Leah Cross, Director of Programmes and Liz Gilmore, Director of Hastings Contemporary, and Anita Taylor, Director of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, and Drawing Projects UK.
Artist Isabel Rock, born in London in 1981, received this prestigious biennial award on the basis of her proposal to develop a body of work that depicts an imaginative, surreal vision of the world after climate breakdown has devastated both planet and people. Her drawing selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf exhibition, Our Cell, is a biro drawing on paper offering a glimpse into her month-long stay in HMP Bronzefields in November 2022, when her participation in the Just Stop Oil protests to raise awareness of climate emergency led to her being arrested and incarcerated for a month in prison. Isabel Rock explains,
“As I have become more involved in civil disobedience the more I question our society, its rules and how we inhabit the environment. My month in Bronzefields prison showed me that I don’t need all of the things I thought I needed. The experience highlighted the resilience of the human spirit, the ingenuity of necessity and the importance of human connection.”
A key part of the artist’s usual practice, drawing became a way to document prison life, to make custody bearable, and to create meaningful connections. “Drawing in prison became my saviour against the monotony” shares Isabel Rock. “We received a notebook in our ‘welcome’ pack and when that was full, I drew on anything I could - envelopes, backs of crossword puzzles, scraps of paper”.
Her exhibition will form part of the autumn 2025 programme in Hastings Contemporary
