CHANEL Next Prize award designed by Royal College of Art Sculpture student

Students from the RCA’s Sculpture MA programme were invited to design an award honouring the 2022 CHANEL Next Prize winners. This biennial prize is awarded to international contemporary artists redefining their disciplines. The students’ maquettes were judged by gallerist and curator David Gill. RCA Sarah Staton, Acting Head of Programme, Sculpture MA, oversaw the studio project.

“We were delighted that CHANEL and the RCA’s Sculpture MA programme could come together on the commissioning of the first ever CHANEL Next Prize,” explained Sarah. “Following a brief set by the client, our MA sculpture students were invited to create 3D analogue submissions in the form of maquettes of the award. They produced a wonderfully imaginative array of shapes, textures and surfaces formed from a wide range of materials.”

“David Gill joined us for the judging, he brought his expert knowledge around art and craft along with his deep sensitivity to form and material to the careful consideration of a winner and runners up. It has been a great pleasure to work with CHANEL and David and it has an invaluable learning opportunity for our Sculpture cohort at the RCA.”

Matrix, Helen Clarke

The winning artwork was Matrix, by Helen Clarke. This was realised as a bronze, tabletop sculpture which was given to the 10 CHANEL Next Prize winners at the RCA in October 2023 to mark the end of their two-year journey. The two runners up were Rafaella Lazarou and Yichen Li. “The opportunity to work with CHANEL was clearly not one not to be missed,” Helen reflected. “The brief was so creatively open it was a very inspiring challenge.”

Helen came to the RCA from a BA in Fine Art at the University of Hertfordshire. Through her sculptures and installations she considers our entangled relationship with the landscape. Combining aspects of folklore, heritage crafts and material culture she investigates the cycles and systems of time, production, consumption and the body. “My practice is heavily led by materiality,” Helen explained. “I work with ideas of fertility, folklore and the natural world, all of which have found their way into this piece.”

Helen described the thought process behind her sculpture: “The CHANEL Next prize is awarded for pioneers in their creative fields, trailblazers for the future of their individual industries. I thought about ideas of portals, windows to the future, sites of creation and growth. Through working with clay my sculpture was an amalgamation of material and thought. The final outcome was an organic form, a fleshy aperture of unfurling growth.”

After her design was selected, Helen was invited to see the work cast into bronze. “I worked with a phenomenal team at the Arch Bronze Foundry where I got to witness the realisation of the awards. I was invited to a celebration dinner hosted by CHANEL in honour of the award recipients and had the privilege of meeting some incredible people.”

Helen graduated from the RCA in 2023, and has since continued developing her practice with exhibitions in London and beyond, as she explained: “I have exhibited in New Contemporaries at Camden Arts Centre and have had work in several other exhibitions across London and in MK Calling at the MK Gallery until the end of September. I am now in the process of establishing an artist-led studio and gallery space.”

The winners of the 2022 CHANEL Next Prize also took part in a two-day, custom-made RCA educational programme, held at the RCA’s Battersea campus. This was created in collaboration with CHANEL and delivered by experienced academics from the RCA’s School of Arts and Humanities.