Join us online for the Girl Friday Breakfast Club with Isabel Rock on Friday 24 November 2023 at 8am (UK-time), convened by Anita Taylor.

Isabel Rock was awarded the biennial Evelyn Williams Drawing Award in association with the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2023. The Evelyn Williams Drawing Prize of £10,000 aims to support an artist selected for the exhibition, who has an existing track record, and on the basis of their proposal to develop a solo exhibition or presentation at Hastings Contemporary on the basis of her drawing, Our Cell, and her proposal for a solo exhibition at Hastings Contemporary. 

Isabel's proposal is to develop a body of work that depicts an imaginative, surreal vision of the world after climate breakdown has wreaked its havoc. Her recent drawings have a strong narrative looking at systems of commerce, power structures, the complexities of desire, objects of value, the fallibility of human nature and the enterprising charm of human endeavour. Her drawing selected for the exhibition, Our Cell, is a biro drawing on paper offering a glimpse into her month-long stay in HMP Bronzefields in November 2022, when her participation in the Just Stop Oil protests to raise awareness of climate emergency led to her being arrested and held on remand for a month in prison. A key part of her usual practice, drawing became a way to document prison life, to make custody bearable, and to create meaningful connections.

Isabel Rock (b.1981 Hammersmith, London, UK) studied MA Fine Art Printmaking, Royal College of Art (2006-08) and BA Fine Art Printmaking, University of Brighton (2001-04). Group exhibitions: Royal Academy Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2023, 2020); Cut and Paste Collage Arts, Thameside Gallery, London (2023); India Art Fair, Delhi, India (2022); Friends Like These, Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London (2022); work in progress, Takt Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2022); The Artists Book, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2021); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019, London & tour (2019-20). Solo exhibitions: The Beasts of Berlin, Takt Gallery, Berlin (2023); Dog Spaghetti, Pollys Eisdiele, Brandenburg, Germany (2022). Awards: Special Commendation, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2019; Arts Foundation Fellowship (2013). She lives and works in London, UK.

Anita Taylor is an artist, curator and educator, and Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee. She is the founding Director of the foremost annual drawing exhibition in the UK, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize [since 1994], and Drawing Projects UK, a public-facing initiative dedicated to drawing [since 2009].

The Girl Friday Breakfast Club was established by Professors Kate Reynolds and Anita Taylor in 2018 to provide a friendly and informal space for women to meet and to hear from an interesting woman speaker, eat breakfast and drink great coffee or tea together at Drawing Projects UK on the last Friday of each month. We held our first online Girl Friday in October 2020 after realising we had longer to go before we could gather again for breakfast due to lockdown. We aim to retain the informal format, and events are not recorded, so do book to join in - and bring your own breakfast - or lunch or supper depending on where you are in the world! All women, and those who identify as women, are very welcome to join the Girl Friday Breakfast Club.

Please note that Annual Season Ticket Holders will receive an email with a direct joining link for this event.

We look forward to welcoming you!

#LastFridays #GirlFriday #BreakfastClub #HerStory #WomenInspiringWomen #InspirationalWomen #InspiringWomen #Artist