Sara Gallagher Biography - Awarded 2006 Great Art Prize at The University College for the Creative Arts
In May 2006, I was honoured as the winner of the Great Art Prize for my painting Horton. This piece conveys the survival of abandoned hospital equipment within a forgotten space. My choice of particularly mundane colours in oil and acrylic, have been selected to represent the ailing hospital atmosphere.

With the commencement of a Fine Art Masters course, I aim to continue to develop my work and skills channelling my passion into creating great pieces of art.

Having grown up around a functioning psychiatric hospital due to family employment, I returned fifteen years after its closure and was inspired to portray the true aesthetic beauty of desertion in my practice. Studying Fine Art at The University College for the Creative Arts, I graduated in June 2006 with a BA Honours Degree.

David Morris - Winner 2006 Patchings Competition sponsored by Great Art 
My paintings are almost always figurative landscapes or townscapes and it is a constant struggle to keep the application of the paint loose and expressive and to "do less". Originally, my use of watercolour was in a manner using colour and composition to furnishing the drawn line but the paint has now become a part of the conception of the painting and, often, setting a mood for it. I have tried to remove the feeling that the work starts with drawing and ends with paint as added decoration.

I studied at Leeds College of Art and taught in Hull before moving to Lincolnshire. I was Lecturer in Ceramics at Grimsby School of Art and ran a pottery studio with my wife Avril until I retired from teaching in 1990.
My work has been exhibited at the Catto Gallery in London, with the R.I. at the Mall Galleries and with the R.W.S. at Bankside, as well as in many provincial galleries and exhibitions. I have shown in the Laing Art Competition and in the Singer and Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.

Prizes
2006 Patchings Competition - Great Art Prize.
2003 Royal Institute - Matt Bruce, RI, Memorial Award.
Royal Watercolour Society - The New Academy Gallery Commission Prize.
Patchings Competition - St Cuthbert's Award.
1997 Royal Watercolour Society - Manya Ingel Fine Art Award.
Holmfirth Art Exhibition - Zeneca Prize.
1996 Royal Watercolour Society - Best Newcomer Award.

Further images can be seen at www.lincolnshireartistssociety.org.uk or www.birchamgallery.co.uk