Eyeblog

ARTIST SIMON YEWDALL ANNOUNCED AS WINNER OF 'THIS IS NOW' COMPETITION

Back in October, Eyestorm teamed up with Ford and The Sunday Times for a competition to find a budding new artist whose work would feature in an advert for the new Ford Fiesta.

The competition was titled ‘This Is Now’, which was also the brief for the project, and artists were invited to submit one piece of work that represented the ‘here and now’ for them.

There were hundreds of entries including photographs, drawings and sculpture, then on 2nd December, the works were judged by creatives from Ford, News International and Eyestorm, including Martin Pierson creative director of Times Media and myself as Eyestorm’s creative director.

After hours of looking through the submitted pieces, a powerful image titled ‘Yes We Can’ was finally chosen as the winning piece. Created by 24-year-old illustration student Simon Yewdall from Rutland, the work stood out as piece that most represented the essence of ‘now’, with its obvious references to the Obama campaign. I felt that its positive message was also a refreshing change to much of the negative attitude that has been looming over the financial world of late, and almost illustrates how the current mood should be with regards to the crisis in that society should be working together to come out the other side.

Times Media’s Martin Pierson said “to create an image that sums up ‘now’ in an artistic way is extremely difficult. For me the use of Barack Obama’s ‘yes we can’ phrase was a clever way of capturing the moment. The work has a fresh, pop art Andy Warhol-type feel that I really like”.

I also liked the way Yewdall applied his current working practice to the brief, which is a sign of strength in an artist.

As a result of winning the competition, Eyestorm have now taken Yewdall on as one of their artists and offered him a publishing deal to make a limited edition print of ‘Yes We Can’ which is launching this week. See the print and read more about Simon Yewdall.

Angie Davey
Eyestorm Creative Director

In Association with the Institute of Contemporary Arts

Eyestorm is the leading online gallery of limited edition contemporary art. Founded in 1999, Eyestorm came under new management in 2006 and has refined its operations to make buying the finest contemporary art easier and more enjoyable than ever before.