LOEWE FOUNDATION / Studio Voltaire Award 2023

Studio Voltaire and the LOEWE FOUNDATION are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 award: Babajide Brian, Maz Murray, Emily Pope, Shamica Ruddock, Meera Shakti Osborne, Nick Smith and Ossie Williams.

Established in 2021, the LOEWE FOUNDATION / Studio Voltaire Award aims to increase opportunities for under-represented artists in London, providing vital support through rent-free studio space, professional development opportunities and a bursary. Celebrating talent, individuality and original thinking within contemporary art practice, the programme seeks to strengthen equitable representation and access, and amplify artistic voices across class, race, gender, sexuality and disability. The selected artists for the second edition are working across a range of disciplines and mediums, encompassing a diverse set of interests, experiences and methods.


Babajide Brian (b. 1996, London) is an artist working primarily in drawing, having built a significant body of work over the last 10 years using pencil, mechanical pencil and fine liners on paper. Working directly from life, photographic imagery and memory, his work falls into two distinct areas: architecture and portraiture.

Emily Pope (b. 1990, London) is a visual artist working across moving image, printmaking, radio, creative writing and publishing. Her research explores a history of experimental contemporary broadcast media with a focus on humour and satire, feminism, political rhetoric and class politics, and ways of challenging dominant power structures.

Maz Murray (b. 1995, Basildon) is an artist working across film, writing and performance. They use satire, surrealism, melodrama and humour to discuss queer and trans identity, class and the complexities of public life by repurposing and subverting pop cultural tropes such as music videos, television documentaries, talk shows, social media content and cinema.

Meera Shakti Osborne (b. 1992, Tottenham) is an artist and youth worker from north London whose work focuses on collective healing through self-expression, exploring the potential of art as a tool to share stories that might feel sidelined. Shakti Osborne’s multi-media practice engages with accessibility and confidence building in both formal education settings and casual encounters across.

Nick Smith (b. 1982, Liverpool) works primarily in video collages and photographic installations to explore the theme of class within the context of the built environment. Smith's archive of photographs, videos and research materials, compiled from his work as both an artist and property inspector, serves as the primary source for his work.

Ossie Williams’s (b. 1993, St Lucia) work is an intimate exploration of Afro-Caribbean culture and identity. Through photography, film and screen printing, Williams documents their formative experiences within the Caribbean and explores the intersectionality between community, religion and queerness.

Shamica Ruddock (b. 1992, London) is an artist-researcher working between sound and moving image. Ruddock considers the ways that Black diasporas are engaged and presented, particularly interested in how black techno sonic production functions as a form of speculation, narrativising and space-making.