Dandelion by Ed Burkes at The Mall Galleries

Dandelion is an exhibition of work created by the eighth winner of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award, Ed Burkes, in response to the people, culture, heritage and landscape of Derbyshire. The biennial award brings a rising artist to Derby to produce a lasting legacy of contemporary work of national importance.

Over the past twenty years, the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award has become one of the most valuable art prizes in the country and Ed Burkes is a truly worthy winner. Overcoming the challenges and obstacles of lockdown, Ed has created a bold and boisterous body of work that is full of colour, theatre, folklore and nods to our everyday.

Ed was selected for the residency as part of an exciting new collaboration with Mall Galleries whereby past exhibitors of the Federation of British Artists’ FBA Futures exhibition (the UK’s largest annual survey of figurative art by new graduates) were invited to be considered for the award.

Ed has responded to the uniquely Derbyshire practice of well dressing, a tradition in which wells are adorned with decorative panels created by pressing flower petals into clay. Ed's pictorial division of the canvas and an interest in the decorative (already existent in his work) feels pronounced here, suggestive of the well dressings. A folk art for the benefit of all walking by, Ed has absorbed them into his pantheon of references, presenting a narrative, as they do, through text and image set within a structural framework.

Dandelion opened at Derby Museum and Art Gallery in September 2020 and is touring to Mall Galleries, London, in July 2021.