Earlier this year a new art competition was launched: the Chaiya Art Awards. The theme was ‘Where is God in our 21^stcentury world?’ The finalists’ artwork made up an exhibition held at the prestigious gallery@oxo at Easter. More recently, a beautiful hardback coffee table book written featuring all the finalists has been created. To celebrate its launch, I have the huge pleasure of being a part of the book’s blog tour. Here, the founder of the art award, Katrina Moss, reveals the idea behind it and what she wanted to achieve – as well as details about another competition. (Special thanks for Jonny Back for his beautiful photography.)

Where did the idea for the competition come from?

I thought it would be fantastic to create an arena where artists could explore their spirituality through their art and creativity. The feedback I had from artists is that galleries aren’t always interested in art that explores faith. We deliberately made the competition theme based, to focus the work to explore the depth and mystery of God. During the competition I received several emails thanking us for opening up this opportunity. “It has given my practise a significant boost to my confidence and creativity,” said one artist.

Do you come from an artistic family and are you an artist yourself?

I don’t come from an artistic family at all. In my thirties I had a significant breakdown and one of the things that happened in the process of getting well was something unlocked inside of me. I found in the darkest of times an incredible release in being able to express myself creatively. Making art continues to allow me to express myself in life – in the joyous, the confusing, the difficult, the times of sadness and gut-wrenching disappointment. Art is like music; it allows us to communicate things that are beyond words and engages us at a deep emotional level. My current form of making is mosaics.

Did you have a large number of entries for the competition?

We were amazed. In the first three months from our launch in September 2017 we had 80 entries; in the final month we were overwhelmed as the total grew to 453 entries. The entries varied from photography, sculpture, textiles, videos, ceramics, drawing to painting. We were thrilled. The standard of work was really high and we had entrants from all ages across the entire UK including Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. The website had nearly 30,000 hits and visitors to the exhibition numbers were 2,700 plus. (I say plus because sometimes there were so many visitors they didn’t all get recorded.)

 How did the book come about?

I knew I wanted a standalone book that would also complement the  exhibition. We were doing something new, something truly innovative  and I wanted a far greater number of people to enjoy, explore, question and meditate on the work. I think Ann did a superb job in pulling the book together because her writing is so creative and meditative and works perfectly alongside the art. She and I have been friends for 35 years and I have always loved her writing. Our passion for seeing work of faith and spirituality created remains undiminished. It was lovely to work on another project together.

What were the outcomes you hoped for?

There were three things I was looking for:

• To allow artwork that explored the theme to stand alongside other contemporary galleries in our capital city in such an iconic location.
• To allow the public to discover something of the possibility of transcendence in our hugely secular society.
• I wanted the artwork to be for sale to help the careers of the artists. Over 25 per cent of the pieces were sold. It is fantastic that through the exhibition artwork found its way into people homes and workplaces.

As it was so successful, are you planning you do another competition?

Yes, we will. We will announce the theme Easter 2019 and the competition exhibition will be Easter 2020. Please sign up to our website if you want to be kept informed and enter the competition. Everyone is welcome to contribute.

Where is God in our 21^st Century World? by Ann Clifford was published by Instant Apostle on 21 September 2018. It is available from bookshops, online retailers and the Chaiya Art Awards website.