The Richard and Rosemary Wakelin Purchase Award 2010, 1 May – 20 June 2010, Permanent Collection Gallery, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Alexandra Road, Swansea

It is a good week for Swansea based artist Jonathan Anderson (b. 1977). He has been awarded the 2010 Richard and Rosemary Wakelin Purchase Award. Three of his works have been chosen for the permanent collection at the Glynn Vivian by this year’s selector Meg Anthony, Manager of Carmarthen’s Myrddin Gallery.

The works selected for the annual prize are all sculptures from the artist’s recent ‘house’ series, entitled Concrete House (2009), Concrete House with Coal Seam (2010) and Sand House Mould (2006-8). Meg Anthony was drawn to Anderson’s pieces because she considered them to be ‘both poetic and profoundly moving, as the house form draws us close to the artist’s psyche as well as questioning (dis)harmony on a social and political level.’

Jonathan Anderson graduated from Swansea Metropolitan University in 2007 and has since established his studio in Swansea, where he works daily, blogging the results at http://coalodoniaprojects.blogspot.com. In attendance at opening night on Friday with his friend and mentor Peter Finnemore, the artist gave a brief and humble thank you speech before the hordes of congratulators swarmed in. He could later be found dishing out miniature art works – coal house drawings inside match boxes – to well wishers. Look out for his solo show at the Mission Gallery in Swansea in the autumn; I’m expecting great things.