Now in its second year, The Evening Standard’s Art Prize competition in association with Hiscox is offering £10,000 in cash, a lifetime National Art Pass and one year’s fine art insurance.

For last year’s winner, HelenA Pritchard (see photograph below with her winning piece To Make a Sculpture in 2017. Photo: Nigel Howard), the opportunity proved to be life-changing. The South-African artist had been making art with modest success for many years, but it wasn’t until she won the Art Prize that her career took off. In the last 12 months, she’s had several exhibitions, including a recent show at The Hospital Club in London’s Covent Garden. With entrants asked to create a work inspired by the word ‘London’, Pritchard’s To Make a Sculpture is an abstract painting that represents the ‘exciting city full of opportunity’ that she moved to more than 20 years ago.

‘There are so many barriers to entering the art world: economic barriers, not knowing people, not having a network. The Art Prize is about giving artists a real opportunity to break into the industry,’ says Jessie Thompson, Art Prize judge and Evening Standard Digital Arts Editor. ‘We started the competition to give undiscovered artists a push.’

This year’s competition looks beyond London, with the theme of ‘progress’. Plus, there are two new judges – bestselling author Olivia Laing and portrait artist Chantal Joffe – bringing the total number to six. According to Thompson, they’ll be looking out for art that challenges them, ‘that makes them think about the theme differently.’

The judges have two criteria: first, has the artist successfully reflected the brief? Second, have they followed the rules – which are very simple? Paintings, drawings and sketches are all accepted, so long as they’re no larger than size A0 (841 x 1189 mm) … and that’s pretty much it!

For more details and to enter, please visit the website, www.standard.co.uk.