The EposPress Drawing Prize is awarded once every two years and just like two years ago five nominees have been put forward by the jury. The five finalists were selected from a group of talented young artists who focus on drawing within their artistic skills. The jury was united in its opinion that all nominated artists add new and unexpected perceptions within the existing abundance of drawings in contemporary art.

While some opt for dark scenes with allusions to the world of gaming and to leading characters within such genres, others rather experiment with words and take the drawing off its flat surface and lay it on the floor as a rug. It requires no further explanation that the jurors have once again set themselves a difficult task, because how do you pick a winner from five artists who have been selected by a jury that believes they stand out among their contemporaries?

After hours of discussion – not only regarding the persuasive power of the work in relation to its content, technical skills and expressiveness, but also taking the presentation within the exposition into account – the jury has reached a unanimous decision.

In the winning work the artist plays with size and scale, nothing is what it seems and yet you easily recognise details from the real world. Elements that are virtually drawn to scale are occasionally repeated within the picture plane and as a result of this everything you recognise from everyday life presents itself in a different, new reality. Everything, every detail takes on another meaning in a rearranged composition. In doing so, the artist treads the narrow dividing line between what is real and what is not. At times, spectators might feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, where everything that is large becomes mega-large or exactly the opposite, shrinks to miniature size before your eyes.

The playful experiments with size and the combinations of different visual elements lend the works a certain surrealist character. One moment it makes you smile, the next it forces you to take another close look. You are sucked into the drawing and each time you discover something new, different details that push your initial interpretation of the work into another direction. It keeps tickling the imagination, you keep looking, you want to see and discover more.

The works exude a mysterious quality because the artist draws weird scenes. This keeps the spectator interested in the next work: you want to see more and more. What inspires this artist? Are we looking at dreams that have been drawn or is the artist viewing the world with a sense of the absurd? You will not find an unambiguous answer, but this is not necessary, the works speak for themselves and conjure up a world in which everything is different, nicer, madder and more beautiful.                                                         

The creator of these works has an accurate manner of expressing herself visually and she does not stick to one subject. The artist continually tries new directions and takes the spectator along during this exploration. Within the drawing and within this relatively young oeuvre the attention of the spectator is quietly but forcefully being shifted, the eye keeps moving over every drawn element and detail, from line to surface, from dark and black to vacuous white. And back again. In addition, the winner demonstrates technical skill and, not without relevance, exhibits a high degree of virtuosity. The jury came to a unanimous decision and the winner of the EposPress Drawings Prize 2014 is: Lenneke van der Goot.

Diana Wind, president of the jury EposPress Drawing Prize

Jury: Ludo van Halem, Arno Kramer, Roos van Put, Corrie van der Veen