This week, Liberty Speciality Markets Art Award partner Penny Harris shares her advice on ensuring your application attracts attention.
Whether you’re pressing submit for the first time or refining your tenth (or hundredth) application form, you’ll know the feeling: rewriting the same artist statement at midnight, second-guessing which images to include, wondering if this is the application that will finally pull through. Awards applications can feel equal parts hopeful and exhausting, but they can also be crucial to sustaining an early-stage creative career.
The Liberty Speciality Markets Art Award (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is now open for applicants. The award offers a unique, fully funded, two-year programme designed to support talented UK graduate artists as they transition into professional practice.
Selected artists will receive a £1,000 participation fee, professional mentoring, and the opportunity to exhibit and sell their work at Liberty’s London office in the iconic Walkie Talkie building from September 2026 to August 2028. Alongside the exhibition, artists will take part in an in-depth development programme led by leading figures across the art world, culminating in an awards ceremony in Spring 2028 with £7,500 in prizes available.
Open to artists who graduated in 2025 or 2026, the award welcomes all media, from painting and sculpture to moving image and textiles. Entry is completely free. If you’re looking for funding, visibility, and real-world guidance to build a sustainable artistic career, this is an opportunity not to miss.
To help you approach the application process with clarity and confidence, we spoke to Penny Harris, co-founder of Parker Harris (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the programme partner for the award.
Penny, alongside Emma Parker, created Parker Harris in 1990, and has grown to become one of the UK’s leading art consultancies. Together, they oversee art prizes and exhibitions spanning all disciplines and scales, as well as commissions, both public and private, working alongside galleries, collectors, corporate sponsors, and artists around the world. Over the years, Penny has collaborated with organisations including Penguin, Prince’s Trust, Royal Photographic Society and The Sunday Times, among many others.
For over three decades, she has championed emerging and established artists alike, offering practical advice on everything from writing stronger artist statements and pricing work confidently, to navigating collectors, residencies and long-term career planning. Through portfolio reviews, curated exhibitions, one-to-one mentoring and The Art Ladder (Si apre in una nuova finestra) – her paid professional development platform designed to demystify the art world – Penny has built a reputation for pairing strategic insight with genuine advocacy.
And today, she is extending her expertise to Learner Platform members, particularly those considering applying to the Liberty Speciality Markets Art Award, or looking for guidance on how to improve their applications for any art prize, grant funding, or open call.
You can apply via the online entry form here (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Deadline: 29 July 2026 at 5:00pm GMT.
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13/02/2026
