I am applying to the 2025 Dover Art Prize to support the creation and development of an ambitious new body of work, culminating in an exhibition in Darlington. This project will expand upon my current investigations into environment and place in rural Lanarkshire, shifting focus westward to explore the Ayrshire coast — a region that, like Lanarkshire, reveals tensions in how landscapes are understood, inhabited and used.
Rich in culture and heritage, the Ayrshire coastline remains a site of ongoing contestation. The CalMac ferry service between Ardrossan and Arran, long plagued by delays, cancellations and the abandonment of its original harbour, reflects broader issues of disconnection. For me, this is deeply personal — Arran holds memories as a family holiday destination, now partially inaccessible, deterring visitors and affecting local communities.
The Dover Art Prize bursary would be vital in enabling a creative response to these evolving challenges. I intend to use the funding to support the research and development phase of the project, covering materials as well as travel for short research residencies across Brodick, Ardrossan, and wider Arran. These visits will allow me to draw, reflect, and develop a nuanced understanding of the cultural shifts and community frictions shaped by the ferry crisis.
My academic background and continued commitment to my practice demonstrate a consistent engagement with the notion of transient landscapes — landscapes in flux, shaped by social, political, and ecological pressures — which I translate into visual art.
The funding would allow for the creation of large-scale drawings and paintings, using aluminum stretcher bars and thick duck cotton canvas. Through this, I aim to further interrogate the relationship between drawing and painting, stripping both mediums back to their raw, expressive core. The time to expand a body of work which is professionally funded and celebrated would be exponential for my emerging practice. To expand my current network more nationally and learn from other recipients.
As a Glasgow-based contemporary artist, my practice explores the transient, ever-shifting nature of landscape—particularly through themes of collapse, renewal, and regeneration. With a dual degree in Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art and a deep connection to post-industrial and rural environments, I approach painting and sculpture as living, breathing entities—both process and outcome.
Darlington, with its industrial heritage and evolving identity, provides fertile ground for this investigation. My work, which often navigates the tensions between human and non-human agency, offers a lens through which to reframe the landscape not as static, but as something deeply alive and continually shaped by time, memory, and material forces. Through vibrant, large-scale canvases that embrace imperfection and transformation, I aim to create work that resonates with Darlington’s own story of change and reinvention.
Bringing this project to Darlington would not only contribute to the creative dialogue in the region but also connect local audiences to broader conversations around environment, land use, and placemaking. I hope my work would inspire engagement with the landscape in new, tactile ways—foregrounding the role of art as a space for reflection, community, and regeneration in both a local and national context.
April, B.1998 is a Glasgow Based Contemporary Artist, with both an Undergraduate and Postgraduate Degree in Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art. Through creative practice, she asks questions surrounding the transient state of our landscape- of nature, agency and environmentalism. Living, breathing, vibrant canvasses. A visceral expression and navigation of the transient nature of rural landscape, from the micro to the monumental, pushing the materiality of paint as substance to the extreme. Each holding their own dynamic tensions of collapse, renewal and rebuild. Recent Exhibitions include:
2025 Never go out, SWG3 Glasgow, UK. 2024 30 x 30, Society of Scottish Artists Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. The Beat, The Kaleidoscope Gallery, UK & Echo’s Studios, Rau Pelotas, Sao Paul, Brazil. T H E U N F O L D P R O J E C T: A GRADUATE SHOWCASE 2024-2025 Dreams, Part Crowd Gallery, Toronto, Canada. Landscape Painting Today, London Messum’s, West East, Online Exhibition, London, UK. Postgraduate Degree Show, Fine Art, Stow Building, Glasgow, UK. Salon Des Inclusions, Annex Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK. Do you know who I am? Wasps South Block Gallery, Glasgow, UK. Come for Supper, The Drawing Room, The Glasgow School of Art, UK.
2023-2024
The Glasgow School of Art, Master of Letters in Fine Art Practice. (Distinction)
2019- 2023
The Glasgow School of Art, BA(Hons) Sculpture and Environmental Art. (First-Class)
2018- 2019
The Tramway Visual Arts Studio, Foundation Art Course.
2022: Barnes Graham Trust Award
I work as an art educator, working across various contexts of visual art education- From workshop leader to creative practices tutor. I support creative education at all stages:
Art Tutor, Open Studio Department, The Glasgow School of Art, July 2024-Present.
Art Tutor, The University of Strathclyde, Centre for lifelong Learning, January 2025-Present.
The University of Cumbria, Teaching Associate Pool, October 2024- Present.
Society of Scottish Artists Committee Member, September 2024-2025.
Learning & Technology, User Support Assistant, Library Services. The Glasgow School of Art, January 2024-Present.
2025
Issue / Volume 1 | Curatory Magazine
2024
The Glasgow School of Art – April Lannigan on Vimeo
April Lannigan | Saatchi Art
UK Exhibitions – Central, East, West | Messums Org
Master’s Degree Show Catalogue, The Glasgow School of Art, UK.
Beyond the Surface – April – Wasps (waspsstudios.org.uk)
‘Beyond the Surface’ By April – Exhibition at The Briggait in Glasgow (artrabbit.com)
Scotsman: Emerging Sculpture Award, (January 2024) Emerging Scottish sculptors get the chance to create work for new Edinburgh ‘culture quarter’ (scotsman.com)
Glasgow School of Art & Midton: Materials Matter
2023
Glasgow School of Art Website, (December 2023) The Glasgow School of Art (gsa.ac.uk)
Paisley Art Review; The Scotsman (July 2023). Art review: The Big Art Show, The Art Department, Paisley (scotsman.com)
GSA Degree Show Review; The Scotsman (June 2023) Art reviews: Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2023 | Glasgow School of Art MFA Degree Show 2023 | The Scotsman
Glasgow School of Art Digital Showcase (July 2023) April – GSA Showcase 2023
Glasgow School of Art, Degree Show Catalogue, Good Press Glasgow.
Living Landscape, Undergraduate Degree Show work, Self Publication.
Email: aprillannigan101@gmail.com
Address: 19 General Royal Way Carluke, Carluke, ML8 4LP, GB
Local Authority: South Lanarkshire
