Every year there are a number of awards for the most deserving of the entries. There are three Awards for Open House Artists this year, and these were presented on May 19 at the Regency Town House in Brunswick Square.

The Best Open House Award

We are delighted that The Latest and Latest Music Bar will again be sponsoring and selecting the Best Open House Award. The winning house  will be chosen by members of The Latest and Latest Music Bar team and the award will be presented at a special ceremony at the end of the festival.

Visitors Choice Award

Visitbrighton will be sponsoring the Visitors Choice Award. Throughout the festival visitors will be able to vote for their favourite artist taking part in the Selectors’ Choice exhibition at the Regency Town House.

“VisitBrighton is delighted to sponsor the first Visitors’ Choice Award as part of the Artists Open Houses Festival.  All visitors attending  the Selectors’ Choice exhibition  will be able to vote for their own personal favourite artist. The winning artist will receive the inaugural ‘Visitors’ Choice Award’ and one visitor, selected at random from all who vote, will win a mini ‘Art Lover’s break’ to the city including a night’s accommodation and other goodies.”

~ John Carmichael | Marketing Manager, VisitBrighton

The Festival Award

Brighton Festival will be selecting an artist from those exhibiting in the Selectors’ Choice exhibition at the Regency Town House, to be presented with the Festival Award.

A ceremony will be held to present both VisitBrighton’s “Visitors Choice Award”  and “The Festival Award”, at The Regency Town House at the end of the Festival.

STOP PRESS

Art Lovers Gather for the A O H Festival Awards May 2009

Regency Town House was the venue for the Artists Open Houses Festival award ceremony last night. Regency Town House is also the location for two of the HOUSE exhibitions – Billy Cowie’s Reverie Alone and the Selector’s Choice Exhibition which showcases the work of selected artists from Artists Open Houses.

Like the Artists Open Houses Festival itself, the award ceremony gets bigger and better every year. This year there were three coveted awards on offer. ‘Best Open House’ sponsored by The Latest Magazine, ‘Visitor’s Choice’, sponsored by VisitBrighton and ‘Brighton Festival Award’ chosen by Brighton Festival Director, Andrew Comben.

Having visited many of the houses, both Angi Mariani and Andrew Kay were on hand to announce the winner of their ‘Best Open House’ award. Presenting the award Andrew Kay said ‘Between us we have visited over 70 houses. We have been truly impressed by the standard of the Open Houses this year. What I really enjoy is visiting the homes of professional art practitioners.’ The runner up was Ned Hoskins (109 Stanford Avenue. see p33 of the Brochure) and the winner was Pandora’s Basement (44b Springfield Road, see p15)

Andrew Comben presented the ‘Brighton Festival Award’for an individual artist within the Selector’s Choice Exhibition. Selector’s Choice is an exhibition of selected Open House artists on the theme of ‘house’, chosen by three prominent local curators. It links the Open Houses Festival with the new curated festival, HOUSE. Commenting on his choice Andrew Comben said: ‘It has been a subjective choice and a very difficult one, as the Selector’s Choice Exhibition has pulled in some of the best artists within the Open Houses festival. These curated spaces have worked wonderfully well and marked a step change and progression for the Artists Open Houses.’ Matt Smith’s ‘Virgins’ (see HOUSE section of the Brochure p4) was the runner up while the overall winner was John Dilnot (see HOUSE p4) whose work includes ‘Home for Max Ernst’. More of the winning artists work can also be seen in the Open Houses.

John Carmichael, Marketing Manager of VisitBrighton announced the winner of the ‘Visitor’s Choice’ award for an artist in the Selector’s Choice Exhibition. Visitors have been voting after seeing the exhibition and over 1,000 votes were cast.

On presenting the award John said: ‘It is a fantastic festival from a tourism point of view as it opens up different areas of the city for visitor’s to enjoy. It is a joy to see so many people wandering Brighton clutching the distinctive Open Houses brochure.’

‘It was a close contest with less than five votes between the top two exhibiting artists but there can only be one winner and it is Fran Richardson.’ (see HOUSE p4)