ASC Art Prize 2026 Exhibition

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the ASC Art Prize Exhibition 2026, a showcase celebrating the exceptional talent within our studio community. This year’s exhibition brings together ten standout artists, highlighting the diverse and vibrant contemporary art created across our studio buildings.

Key Details & Visiting Information

The exhibition will take place at the ASC Gallery, located at The Handbag Factory. Everyone is welcome to visit, discover the works, and support our artist community.

Exhibition Dates: 6th – 17th August 2026
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Special Weekend Opening: Saturday, 8th August | 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Private View & Awards Ceremony

Join us for the opening night and Private View on Thursday, 6th August, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

During the evening, we will announce the winner of the £1,000 ASC Artist Award, recognising outstanding achievement among this year’s shortlisted artists.

Reflecting on Open Studios 2026

Earlier this May, over 300 artists across eight ASC locations opened their doors for three action-packed weekends of Open Studios.

We were overwhelmed by the incredible turnout, welcoming more than 5,000 visitors across our sites in Kingston, Alperton, Bow, Chaplin Centre, Brixton, Streatham, Croydon, and the Lambeth Old Courthouse. The energy and engagement from our local communities were truly inspiring, and the upcoming Art Prize Exhibition is a celebration of that ongoing creative spirit.

Introducing the 2026 ASC Award Finalists

The ten finalists featured in this year’s exhibition represent the breadth of talent housed within the ASC network.

To ensure the exhibition reflects our wider community, artists were chosen directly from each of our key ASC studio locations: Kingston, Alperton, Bow, Chaplin Centre, Brixton, Streatham, Croydon, and the Lambeth Old Courthouse. Each finalist brings a distinct voice, medium, and practice to the group exhibition at The Handbag Factory.

Isabel Rock

Studio: ASC Stockwell Road

Isabel Rock is a creator of contemporary fairytales. Her work is an explosion of strange occurrences while a surreal narrative takes the audience on a journey into the imagination. Taking inspiration from Japanese woodcuts and Indian miniature painting Rock has developed a technique of cutting up her woodblock prints to make large scale collages which are then filled in with drawn details. The subject is a mixture of humour, hidden morals, magical characters, contemporary culture, food and fantastical situations.

In 2023 she won the Evelyn Williams Award for her drawing ‘Our Cell’, made while spending a month on remand at HMP Bronzefield after taking part in a Just Stop Oil protest. Rock says ‘drawing in prison massively saved my mental health, it gave me so much purpose and meaning in a very difficult environment. It’s easy to feel disempowered and alone but art has the power to unite and provide the connection that is an essential part of being human.’

Trish Wylie

Studio: ASC Alperton

Born in South London in 1956, Trish Wylie earned her BA in Fine Art Painting at Camberwell. After spending two decades in Dorset, she first gained acclaim for her large-scale, cinematic canvases inspired by the westerns of John Ford and Sergio Leone, a body of work famously written about by Sir Christopher Frayling.

Recently, Wylie’s focus has shifted to rodeo riders, matriarchs, and sage women. Portraying long-haired, post-menopausal figures in fringed chaps mastering bucking horses, her vibrant paintings serve as a clarion call for older women to claim their “third age” with action and grit. Painted directly onto canvas without preparatory sketches, her direct technique mirrors the raw energy, risk, and tension of the rodeo itself.

Justine Formentelli

Studio: ASC Stockwell Road

London-based artist Justine Formentelli works across painting, mixed media, and sculpture. Having grown up across Morocco, Réunion Island, and the Caribbean, her multicultural upbringing deeply informs a practice centered on transition, displacement, and the body’s connection to its surroundings.

Through translucent layers, fluid contours, and sculptural reliefs, Formentelli explores encounters between organic processes and natural environments. She holds an MA with Distinction from the City & Guilds of London Art School (2018) and has exhibited internationally, with recent shows at Flowers Gallery and Vivienne Roberts Projects. Her work is featured in the Soho House collection and private collections worldwide.

Huw Briggs

Studio: ASC Streatham Hill

Huw Briggs is a multidisciplinary artist based in London, UK. His work explores the intersection of urban architecture and language and what it means to exist in that environment. Briggs finds beauty in abandoned and mundane objects on the ground, transforming urban textures, shapes and colour onto canvases, sculpture and film.

Their artistic process focuses on documenting shifting cityscapes and translating utilitarian materials into emotive, fluid compositions.

José Rafael Mendes

Studio: ASC Grafton Quarter

José Rafael was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1995 and lives and works in London. He received his BA at Wimbledon College of Art in 2017, where his work was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. José completed his MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in 2021 while being the recipient of the Leverhulme Trust and the Gulbenkian Foundation Arts scholarships.

Generally small in scale, José’s work draws on remembered and imagined experience — moments seen, felt, or half-recalled — which are built slowly, layered and reworked through the physical processes of painting and drawing. Sourced from literary and filmic references, as well as his own photographs and writings, the work moves between the observed and the invented, the personal and the collective.

Faza Merajdin

Studio: ASC Empson Street

Born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1973, Faza Merajdin works in London. She graduated with a BA in Fine At from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1997. For more than two decades, Faza has been using pattern to explore the transient and transformative qualities of light. Her practice moves between painting and printmaking with the two disciplines merging to generate an image.

Faza has held a studio at ASC for many years, regularly participating in open studio events.

Marc Elmes

Studio: ASC Streatham Hill

Marc’s practice is deeply rooted in South London, producing visually rich and ornamental pieces. His work carries a “carnivalesque” spirit, blending modern installations with ancient mythical themes.

Samantha Jackson

Studio: ASC Thurlow Street

A Scottish painter whose gestural work explores the relationships between material and site. She uses found materials and water-based pigments to create fragmented, fleeting paintings that reward “long looking” and foster connection.

Laura Broughton

Studio: ASC Cleaver Street

Laura Dawn Broughton is a London-based contemporary artist who creates narrative paintings and drawings from her Cleaver Street studio, capturing playful yet thought-provoking snapshots of city life.

James Kaye Harris

Studio: ASC Kingston

Born in London in 1951, this self-taught artist took a long and varied path before dedicating himself fully to his practice. After renting Studio K14 in 2021, he embraced his creative calling with the mindset that it’s “better late than never.” As he puts it: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was ART.”

Who will take home this year’s prize?

Look out for our announcement following the opening night on Thursday, 6th August, where the winner of the £1,000 ASC Art Prize 2026 will be revealed!