Batsford Prize

We’re delighted to announce The Batsford Prize 2026 shortlist!

 

The judges for this year’s Batsford Prize have decided on a shortlist of 21 entries across the four categories Applied Arts & Textiles, Fine Art, Illustration, Book Illustration and The Geoffry Powell Prize for Architecture.

The judges for the 2026  award were professionals from across the creative industries: Neil Dunnicliffe, Vaughan Grylls, Anne Kelly, Eoghan O’Brien, Mike Tonkin and Polly Powell. 

The shortlisted entries will be showcased in an exhibition at the Batsford Gallery in Central London 15 May – 24 May. The winners of the Batsford Prize 2026 will be announced on 13 May. First prize in all categories is a £300 cash prize and £100 worth of books from Batsford. Plus: An additional £300 cash prize for an overall winner across the categories.

 

APPLIED ART AND TEXTILES

 

A Sense of Place

Ebberley Webber, BA (Hons) Textile Design, Arts University Bournemouth.

Sense of place looks at my personal connection with Cornwall, the coast, the beaches and the landscape. Designed as an interiors project for the context of hotel rooms in Cornwall, I’ve been inspired by natural forms off the beaches to create patterns full of colour, life, energy and movement.

Originally Ebberley Webber is from the deep depths of Devon, but now they study textiles at Arts University Bournemouth and is enjoying every moment of it. They don’t yet specialise in an area of textile design as they’re exploring every possibility before they decide what they want to focus on in the industry. In their work there’s a lot of connection to where Ebberley is from and the things they enjoy which means there’s lots of passion and emotion woven into their pieces.

 

Murmur

Ruby Higgs, (BA Hons) Textiles Design , Falmouth University.

Murmur is a study of how natural systems of communication and movement can be reinterpreted through tactile and constructed means. It explores the interwoven nature of movement, sound, and pattern as seen in bird murmuration. Investigating collective flight forms’ density, direction, and rhythm that influence woven structure and language.

Ruby is 3rd year textiles student at Falmouth University specialising in weaving. When designing they value the use of traditional techniques and materials through processes such as hand spinning and processing fibre to make my own yarns for weaving. Combining these heritage crafts with more contemporary designs and techniques through innovative weaving is what they enjoy. Many of Ruby’s projects take influence from immersion and my appreciation of the natural environment which they seek to emulate in my work.

 

Occupied Minds

Isobel Honeywood, BA (Hons) Textile Design, Falmouth University.

Occupied Minds is a project intended to collaborate with city councils to develop textiles for future community buildings. Wall hangings, acoustic panels, and partitions function as architectural elements supporting wellbeing and connection. Inspired by modernist artists, hand woven wool textiles use calming palettes and minimal forms, to create restorative spaces.

Isobel Honeywood is a 3rd year Textile design student specialising in Woven textiles. Starting first with paint, ideas then evolve into stitch and finally woven fabric where proportions of colour and pattern have endless possibilities

 

Pres at Seven

Alice Rose, BA (Hons) Textile Design, Arts University Bournemouth.

This project explores the connection between recircling trends within fashion and the nostalgia that this brings, allowing us to revisit playful self-expression. Combining knit with innovative techniques and materials to create textural designs for the context of women’s fashion and accessories. I also considered sustainability through sourcing deadstock yarns.

Alice is a third-year student studying Textiles at Arts University Bournemouth. They create textural designs combining materials and fabric with knit to create playful and cohesive collections for women’s fashion.

 

A Library in Thread

Twig Searle, BA (Hons) Textile Design, Falmouth University.

A Library in Thread is a collection of handwoven textiles inspired by UK folk tales. Using foraged naturally dyes and woven in double cloth, the work translates stories of bogies and fairies into tactile forms, exploring connection between landscape, material, and the passing down of narrative through cloth.

Rooted in the wild landscapes of Cornwall, twig creates textiles shaped by season, soil, and story. Their practice begins with foraging, gathering plants for natural dyes, and continues at the loom, where they hand weave with local wool. Each piece carries echoes of UK folklore, ancient voices, and the quiet rhythms of the land. Guided by coastline, moor, and weather, they translate nature’s shifting moods into cloth, crafting work that feels both elemental and deeply held in place.

FINE ART

 

Fog Horn

Polly Black, BA Fine Art, Arts University Bournemouth.

Fog Horn explores the midlife experience and, through sculpture, assemblage and sound, features a CNC-cut self-portrait that sounds a foghorn when pushed. This work addresses the invisibility of women during this transitional phase, elevating its lows and highs, and repositions the experience beyond the elder-female echo chamber.

Polly is a mixed-media artist working across sculpture, installation, performance and photography. Polly’s practice explores (m)otherhood, body image, and overlooked female experiences, with a focus on midlife as a period of transition. Materially led, their work uses repetition and transformation through clay, plaster, textiles, and found objects, at times shaped by performance. This creative output is informed by care, fragmentation, and constraint, which they approach as generative conditions grounded in everyday life.

 

Sometimes I can see my irises

Yuhan Chen, MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, UAL.

How can I hold onto that flickering light within myself? To find a trace of my original self, untouched by the chaos of life. I mourn for myself in this way. How long until I see my iris again?

Chen Yu-Han’s works are connected by a search for the primal nature of humanity. While focusing on the exploration of personality, they are grounded in the vigilance and critique of the modern information deluge and intangible social norms, excavating the self at the intersection of private and public discourse, thereby peering into the relationship between the individual and the group, and the ambiguity of human beings under modernity.

 

Torso 28.08.25

Anna Mays, MA Print, The Royal College of Art.

Torso 28.08.05 is a sculptural print made from layers of etched mild steel. The imagery is taken from slices of a head to pelvis CT scan of the artists own body. It presents a life-size, physical and material format of these otherwise digital scans.

Anna Mays b.1998 is an Irish artist from Dublin, currently based in London. She studied Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Brighton and was awarded the Printmaking Today State of the Art Graduate award. She is currently doing her Master’s in Print at the Royal College of Art. Anna has a cross-disciplinary approach to print. In doing so, she makes sculptural works and installations to create new perspectives and narratives on how we occupy our bodies and space.

 

Talking Statues

Marina Trani, MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martin’s, UAL.

Talking Statues investigates the enduring vitality and historical resonance of Rome;s Statue Parlanti, positioning them as agents of expression rather than relics. The installation animates paintings and sculptural elements delivering humorous reflections on human behaviour. Within this fabulation, the statues speak from a position shaped by centuries of silent observation.

While born in Italy and with a long experience in science, Marina now lives in London and has transitioned to becoming a full time artist. Marina is now completing a master program in Fine Art at CSM (UAL, London). While painting is her natural form of expression, Marina often adopts a multitude of mediums including printing, animations, installations. Marina has exhibited her work in numerous shows and her work is included in private and public collections.

 

Metanoia

Stephen Wadcock, MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, University of the Art London.

Metanoia forms a connected enquiry into reflection, horizon, rhythm and fragment, exploring how orientation is shaped through light, duration, self-image and language, and how we connect through our bearing towards the horizon and towards ourselves.

Stephen Wadcock is a London-based artist and current MA Fine Art student at Central Saint Martins. His practice spans installation, moving image, photography and writing, exploring how orientation is shaped through light, reflection, duration and spatial encounter. Working with materially direct forms and withheld cues, he creates conditions that test how viewers locate themselves in relation to horizon, self-image and uncertainty. His work is concerned with perception, attention and the unstable boundary between interior and exterior.

 

ARCHITECTURE

 

Drawings of lessons on a violin

 

Aranza Novoa, BA Architecture, Manchester School of Architecture.

These pencil drawings are an architectural interpretation of my 3D structure “lessons on a violin,” which I created for my IB Arts exhibition with the theme of connection. Born out of my experience teaching my sister how to play the violin, the 3D structure aimed to portray how this activity united us.

Aranza Novoa is a first year architecture student at Manchester School of Architecture with a passion for visual storytelling and who enjoys embracing physical modelmaking as part of her creative processes.

 

The Folly

Roberto Garcia Sepulveda, MA Architecture, Kingston University.

An exploration of connections between intuition and construction, where collage informs architectural form. My project transforms an abstract composition into a grounded folly, negotiating relationships between image, material, and site through scale, structure, and making.

Roberto’s academic and professional path is grounded in studies in law, politics, and urban studies in Mexico, the United States, and the United Kingdom. These foundations have shaped their understanding of the built environment as a tool for social transformation, wellbeing, and community engagement. Roberto is currently an architecture student at Kingston University in London. They’ve recently been awarded the Sue-Ann Lee Studentship Award at my university and became a Young Urbanist by the Academy of Urbanism in London.

 

The Written Skin of the City

Min Jeong Park, MA Interior and Spatial Design, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

The Written Skin of the City proposes the urban environment as an ongoing negotiation between body and surface, memory and matter, permanence and play—inviting us to read, listen, and rewrite the shared, living palimpsest.

Min Jeong Park is a designer and artist working across installation, urban research, and design projects. She recently completed an MA in Interior and Spatial Design at the University of the Arts London. Particularly drawn to the notions of surface and layering, her work explores the accumulation of time and traces inscribed on the city’s skin. Through this lens, she translates bodily gestures and material transformations into architectural languages that evoke playfulness and deep sense of presence.

 

BOOK ILLUSTRATION

 

Welcome to Ignoramington

Ellie Good, MA in Children’s Book Illustration, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University.

A society built on superficial connections has completely lost the one connection that is vital for its survival. Could Welcome to Ignoramington be a glimpse into the future? The artwork process uses a combination of pencil drawing, digital manipulation and Risograph print, which reflects the themes of the story.

Ellie is a writer and illustrator with a passion for environmental issues. This year, they will graduate from the wonderful MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art and their career background is in magazines and graphic design. Through their work Ellie aim’s to connect people to nature and craft, spark feelings of wonder, and hopefully start intergenerational conversations about things that really matter.

 

The Star Lion

Heidi Griffiths, MA in Children’s Book Illustration, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University.

My Story ‘Star Lion’, sprung from childhood memories and feelings combined with my love of experimentation in materials and processes. Being connected to my work in both process and storytelling is very important to me. It feels truthful and authentic and I think this helps others connect to your work

Before starting the MA at Cambridge School of Art, Heidi was a self-taught illustrator. They were lucky enough to work on a few children’s books, but they began to feel very disconnected from their work. Heidi didn’t enjoy their process. After time to learn, experiment and develop, they have found a way of working that brings them joy and allows for them to tell their own stories. Heidi lives in Maidstone Kent with their Husband and two children.

 

Terrace Tales

Anantjeet Kaur, MA in Children’s Book Illustration, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University.

Terrace Tales is a screen-printed concertina book capturing the quiet rhythms of rooftop life where play, solitude, and community coexist. Drawn from memory and observation, its wordless, interconnected sequence invites readers of all ages and cultures to wander freely through a disappearing urban feature and find something familiar within it.

Anantjeet is an illustrator and designer from India, working in children’s literature. Trained in graphic design, she shifted from digital drawing to tactile image-making during her recently concluded MA. Her work authentically explores human connections, culture, and childhood curiosity, drawing inspiration from her Indian, Sikh, and Punjabi roots.

 

Hunting for Wishes

Oryn Redford, MA Children’s Book Illustration, Cambridge School of Art,Anglia Ruskin University.

High in the highlands in a small, cosy home is a badger named Button. Buttions’ biggest wish is to have a friend to speak to. So she goes on a mighty adventure to find things to make wishes on. “Oh, I wish, I wish I had someone to speak to”.

Oryn is a children’s book illustrator, author and painter from Scotland. She expresses herself with big brushes through loose and fast brush strokes, giving her work texture and life. She is heavily inspired by childhood memories and feelings, as well as the Scottish Highlands. Her goal is for her art to evoke a feeling of cosiness and comfort as well as a sense of wonder.

 

I’m a Kite

Xiao Sun, BA Illustration, Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh.

A wordless picture book following a fabric kite drifting across landscapes shaped by migration. Using collage and stitching, the work explores how identities are formed through movement, loss, and encounters, reflecting fragile yet enduring connections between people.

Xiao Sun is an illustration student based in Edinburgh, currently in their third year of study. Their practice often combines collage and mixed media, using found and shared materials to explore shifting ideas of identity and connection. They are interested in creating artist books and visual narratives that extend beyond traditional children’s publishing, balancing personal themes with experimental forms.

 

Bonds

Liv Ye, MA Illustration, Kingston School of Arts.

Bonds explores the delicate and complex nature of human relationships, reflecting on how connection, distance, and care shape our emotional lives. It invites a more compassionate awareness of the ties that connect and influence us.

Liv Ye is a London-based illustrator. Her work is inspired by personal experiences and explores imagery that blends emotion and imagination. She aims to evoke joy and self-reflection, fostering a deeper connection between people and the world.

 

The Winners of the Batsford Prize will be announced on the 13 May.