Denise Franklin

This year Denise is the winner of the Hugh Casson Drawing Prize at the Royal Academy for works on paper. This very prestigious award has an emphasis on drawing and is named after the former director of the Royal Academy who was also the director of architecture for The Festival of Britain, staged during the summer of 1951. Denise studied at Newcastle and lives and works in Hastings. She is a member of the Rye Society of Artists and has collaborated with Sarah Palmer, Sally Cole and is currently working on a project with Jane Beecham.

Her work is rhythmically meditative layering of line and tone, speaking at once of abstraction and of the infinitely subtle geographies of land and sea. Her intricate pieces are symphonies of calmness bringing symmetry into our busy lives. The mostly monochromatic works occasionally offer a glimpse of colour and texture. Her artworks have a dynamic movement and draw the eye to line or negative space within the works.