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ATU art graduate Taim Haimet wins prestigious ‘Taylor Art Award’ at the Royal Dublin Society Visual Art Awards
ATU art graduate Taim Haimet wins prestigious ‘Taylor Art Award’ at the Royal Dublin Society Visual Art Awards.
Taim Haimet, recent graduate of Atlantic Technological University (ATU)’s School of Design and Creative Arts, was awarded the ‘Taylor Art Award’ at the Royal Dublin Society Visual Art Awards ceremony held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 7 December 2023. Taim specialised in 3D studies which encompasses Sculpture, Digital Media and Ceramics on the Bachelor of Art in Contemporary Art programme, recently retitled Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Art.
“Immersed in a rich history of Irish art, the RDS Taylor Art Prize (€10,000) is the premier award of the RDS Visual Art Awards. Previous winners (1878 – 2022) include Walter Osborne, Sir William Orpen, Seán Keating, Nora McGuinness and Louis le Brocquy alongside contemporary artists such as Eamon O’Kane, Dorothy Cross and James Hanley. The Taylor Art Award is given annually to a graduate of an Irish art college or an Irish art student graduating from an art college abroad to assist them with the development of their career as a visual artist. The Judging panel of the RDS Visual Art Awards decide upon the winner.” – Taylor Trust citation.
Taim, who is a French student of Syrian descent, is now enrolled on the MA in Creative Practice at ATU Galway city – Wellpark Road campus.
“It is an incredible honour to receive the Taylor Arts Award. If you had told me a year ago I would be blessed with such an opportunity I would have never believed it! I am delighted to be bringing it home to Galway. It is also a recognition for our college and the incredible work our lecturers do with us. I am immensely grateful to my lecturers Ger Leslie, Louise Manifold and Katherine West, who supported and encouraged me when I doubted myself. They went out of their way to facilitate my work coming to life. Being a smaller art college we have this closeness between students and lecturers. We can cross between disciplines and find support when we need it. I hope we get to see many more ATU students in the RDS in the coming years!’’
Gerard Leslie, lecturer in Sculpture, says: “We are very proud that again one of our students has achieved such high recognition for their work. Taim’s work stood out as exceptional alongside the other 14 nominees selected.
“Taim was selected for the Taylor Award ahead of graduates from the National College of Art and Design with seven nominees, Limerick School of Art with one nominee, Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design-IADT with two nominees, TU Dublin with two nominees, and one nominee from ATU Sligo.
“As part of the 3D Lecturing team and The Bachelor of Contemporary Art Program we are extremely proud of Taim and her achievement. She now joins a long list of successful alumni who are contributing to a creative and cultural landscape both within Ireland and exhibiting extensively internationally. Taim joins previous winners ATU graduates Jennifer Cunningham (Class of 2002) who was joint winner of this award in 2002 and Jill Beardsworth (Class of 2020) who won the award in 2020.
“Awards of this nature help reinforce the significance and importance of creativity and ambition. Awards help sustain successful graduates in the primary ventures of their practice. Fundamentally and most importantly they underpin graduate confidence in asserting their role and identity as an ‘artist’ addressing the social frameworks of where we exist”, add Ger Leslie, Lecturer in Sculpture, Department of Creative Arts & Media, School of Design and Creative Arts, ATU Wellpark (Galway).
For information about the course see: https://www.gmit.ie/bachelor-of-arts-honours-in-art
View Taim’s work on YouTube https://youtu.be/Glayo-EQpGA
