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You know that summer is well and truly upon us when EASTinternational unveils its new show.

This year's exhibition includes the work of 30 artists, selected from 1,600 entries from 38 countries.

Jakub Dolejs

The exhibition is growing in stature - so much so that among the artists nominated for this year's Turner Prize, is former EAST exhibitor, Jeremy Dellar.

Sixteen artists from Britain, 10 from Germany and four from North America hasve been chosen to show their work this year. The exhibition is organised as a series of one person shows, including video, photography, abstract and figurative painting.

The selectors chose paintings that they felt could not have been made at any other time.

They looked for work that was made from observed experience almost unmediated by photography or film.

They responded to work that was concerned with personal experience, human values plus the skills of draughtsmanship and composition.

The paintings and photographs represent the mother and child, families and old age.

Mikael Eriksson

Most of all, the selectors talked about the way that images depict emotions and feelings.

It is not just the subject matter that has meaning but also what it feels like to be alive.

The exhibition opens to the public on Monday 5 July and runs until mid-August. Admission is free.

EASTaward

The selectors of EASTinternational 2004, Neo Rauch and Gerd Harry Lybke, gave the 2004 EASTaward on Saturday 3 July to Justin Mortimer, a 33 year old artist based in London who studied at the Slade School of Art.

Describing Mortimer’s paintings as containing ‘a strange perfume’, Rauch said the reason for giving the award to Mortimer was due to the beauty of his handling of paint and the tremendous potential for his maturity as an artist.

Hillwalker by Justin Mortimer

Rauch suggested arranging for Mortimer to take a guest studio in Liepzig, to provide an international context for Mortimer.

Mortimer earns a living as a portrait painter – he has previously won the BP National Portrait Award in 1991 and been commissioned to paint Harold Pinter, the oarsman Steve Redgrave, David Bowie and HM The Queen – while navigating his personal studio practice as an artist in his own right.

It is interesting the way that Mortimer uses this ‘official’ and ‘private’ forms of painting, and the selectors responded to this.

Mortimer comes from a professional naval family. One of his earliest memories is of being photographed by doctors because he was born with a deformed leg and this experience marked his sense of difference.

Through a recent period of depression, Mortimer began the series of works of landscapes with figures from medical textbooks.

This sense of identification with source material for figurative painting is not used in the metaphorical sense – for example as Bacon has used it, which is sometimes interpreted as exploitative – but in one more attuned to empathy with the human form.

The £5000 award was presented by Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton, Director of Visual Arts at Arts Council England, who praised the important role of EAST in artists’ development in the regions over the last fourteen years and an international forum outside of the metropolis.

EASTwork

Public art commission ‘Domestic Bliss’, a life size bronze sculpture by Christopher Landoni, (EAST 2003) will be unveiled on Saturday 3 July at 1pm in the Keep of Norwich Castle Museum.

The sculpture is inspired by the pose of Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ and Holbein’s ‘Dance of Death’.

The Norman Keep at Norwich Castle is the ideal setting for Landoni’s modern medievalism.

EASTwords

EASTwords is a writing project involving Year 10 students from the Blyth Jex School, Earlham High School and Notre Dame High School.

The writing workshop in response to the EASTinternational exhibition, led by Andrea Holland.

There are no restrictions on the type of writing and it can also be illustrated. However, it must be on a single side of A4.

Entries will be judged by the well-known author Stephen Foster, based in Norwich. The winning text will be announced Friday 16 July.

The prize is £50 of Jarrolds Gift Vouchers to spend on art materials or books. We will be able to display the texts within the exhibition and visitors will be invited to comment on their favourite text.

The results of a week-long photography project with Wayland Community High School will also be on display in the exhibition from 23 July.

Thirty year 10 students will spend the week at Norwich School of Art and Design and make a series of photographs inspired by the 'typical' family photographs of EAST artist Trish Morrissey, to tell their own stories about family life.

Win the EAST 2004 full colour catalogue, and EAST T-shirt, designed by Jo Mitchell, one of this year's exhibiting artists. Click here to enter.

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