The Benni Esposito Drawing Award.
This award has been set up in memory of Benni Esposito, an immensely talented young Scottish artist and lecturer who died suddenly in 2005. The award has been established by Benni's family and his friends and colleagues from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. The aim of this award is to encourage art students to develop their talent and excel in their chosen areas of study.
The Benni Esposito Drawing Award is a yearly prize that is awarded to three first year art students from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. The winners are all chosen from the first year general course. The general course introduces the students to a number of different areas of art before they hopefully gain acceptance into one of three specialised schools; Fine Art, Design and the School of Television and Imaging. The three winners are chosen by the lecturing staff on the drawing programme of the general course. This is the programme that Benni co-led and taught on.
The three yearly winners are each selected for their drawing skills as well as their commitment, professionalism and enthusiasm towards their studies. These were all attributes that Benni aspired to. In addition, each student will have to posses a certain individuality or 'benni factor' that makes their work stand out and be worthy of the award. Despite being chosen primarily for their drawing skills, the intention of the judging panel is to award the three prizes to the best general course artists wishing to succeed within each of the three schools. This simply means that there will be a prospective fine art student, Design student and a television and imaging student winning the award each year. Each winner will be awarded £100 and have images of their work displayed on this web site.
This years Benni Esposito Drawing Award was funded by Benni's family and the University of Dundee. We are currently raising money so that this award can become a permanent, yearly event. For this to happen we need to raise about £7,000. Around £4,000 has already been raised. This has been achieved with the help of many of Benni's friends. A Benni Esposito tribute night was held last year and the proceedings of the sale of a portrait of Benni, displayed at the BP Portrait awards 2005, were kindly donated to the fund.
The 'Benni Esposito Prize Fund' is an official account set up by the University of Dundee. Anyone wishing to donate to this fund can do so easily. Money can currently only be donated by cheque although we are considering introducing a secure online donation facility. Cheques should be made payable to 'The University of Dundee' along with a very brief covering letter detailing the name of the fund (this is because the UOD manage a number of funds). Cheques should be marked for the attention of 'Rayne Eaton'. Rayne works in the finance department and is happy to answer any queries regarding donations. If you complete the GIFT AID form (using the link at the bottom of the page) then the university can donate more money towards the fund. Donations should be sent to:
Rayne EatonFinance Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate
Dundee
Scotland
DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 345185
Download the GIFT AID form to send in with your donation. Right click and 'save as' to save a copy onto your PC, or just click the link to open it directly, then print:
Click here for the PDF version