The Football Art Prize

I was very pleased to hear that my painting “Shelf #2” has been selected for the Football Art Prize, an international open call celebrating the confluence between football and art, by Touchstones Rochdale and Parker Harris.

The Football Art Prize exhibition will be a touring exhibition starting at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield from 11 June 2026, before travelling to the National Football Museum, Manchester from November 2026.

The exhibition was selected by a panel including Design Museum director Tim Marlow OBE, artist and writer Harland Miller, and Tottenham Hotspur Women's footballer Jessica Naz.

Glad to have a painting make the shortlist of 75 works and have been busy this weekend getting it ready to ship over to Sheffield Museum for the installation.

SHELF #2 / 40 x 30cm/ Acrylic on Canvas

This painting depicts the shelf in my studio where I display some 90's nostalgia, including football mini-figures and computer games from my childhood. 

I grew up unable to play sports due to a health condition, and so the imaginary or virtual world these items represent was very important to me.

Painting these things 30 years later is more than sentimentality. On the shelf, to me, they have become artefact, and offer a way to explore the space between the lived, the remembered and the imagined.