London-based project space Studio Voltaire and the Loewe Foundation have announced the seven recipients of the third edition of their joint award. The 2025 winners are Lulu Bennett, Chaney Diao, Jesse Glazzard, Taey Iohe, michael., Shenece Oretha, and Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana.
The biennial award supports artists in the United Kingdom with two years of rent-free studio space at Studio Voltaire, where the recipients join a resident community of 50 artists. Winners also receive £5,000 ($6,600) scholarships and professional development resources. More than 500 artists applied for this year’s award through an open call and were reviewed by a panel that included artists Anthea Hamilton and Elizabeth Price. The program is designed to support artists facing economic barriers exacerbated by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis in London.
“In the face of ongoing systemic inequities and deepening precarity, this unique program supports artists to take risks, develop and sustain their practices,” Dot Shihan Jia, curator of residencies at Studio Voltaire, said in a statement. “Each awardee brings a distinct voice and sensibility to the cohort, and their work speaks powerfully to the complexities of the worlds they move through.”
Bennett, who was featured in Artsy’s Queer Art Now earlier this year, creates paintings that land somewhere between a comic book and paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, lush with colors and often featuring her drag persona Samantha Pepys, a nod to the English writer. Diao, who was born in China, explores ideas of desire and labor in sculptural installation and performance, often referencing subcultures such as raves and BDSM. Meanwhile, Glazzard documents working-class and queer communities through intimate text-based and photographic works.
Iohe’s works bridging disability and environmental studies span media, including drawing and moving image. Video artist michael. uses archival material and field recordings to discuss the lived experiences of Black people. Oretha, who was born in the British territory Montserrat, explores the relationship between sound and sculpture drawing on Caribbean traditions and communal listening. Cambana, who moved to London from Peru, creates video and performance works grounded in Afrodiasporic narratives and migration histories.
The previous cohort of award recipients included Babajide Brian, Maz Murray, Emily Pope, Shamica Ruddock, Meera Shakti Osborne, Nick Smith, and Ossie Williams.
Studio Voltaire and the Loewe Foundation will also award a year-long artist residency to one international artist, to be announced later this year. Mumbai-based artist Prajakta Potnis was the most recent recipient of this residency.
