Painter Rachel Jones' BRIT Awards Trophy Takes the Stage
Photo: John Marshall/JMEnternational.
The trophy designed by London-based abstract painter Rachel Jones for the 44th BRIT Awards, Britain’s top music prize, was handed out on Saturday 2 March at London’s O2 Arena. Raye won best album and best track, while Kylie Minogue was honoured for her contribution to music.
Jones’ design for the statuette—a representation of Britannia, the female personification of Britain—is adorned with her characteristic gestural scumbles, very thin coats of opaque paint used to give a softer or duller effect.
The design ‘perfectly reflects the vibrant and spirited British music industry,’ according to Damian Christian, Chair of the BRIT Committee for 2024.
Born in 1991, Jones completed her BA Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art in 2013 and an MA Fine Art at the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 2019.
Since then, she has fast become one of Britain’s top young painters. Picked up by Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac, she has presented solo exhibitions at London’s Chisenhale Gallery in 2022 and Shanghai’s Long Museum in 2023.
Known for vibrant, sprawling paintings on unstretched canvases, designing for the statuette required her to work on a considerably smaller scale.
‘I worked from the base up; I covered up to the chest in a variety of colours and then I started to focus on how to develop certain patterns, textures, and colour combinations,’ explained Jones.
‘I feel like it’s my voice in the form of a trophy,’ she continued. ‘It’s colourful and chaotic, and this was really important because all the other trophies were so distinctive, and you know immediately who made them. I’m really happy that what we’ve ended up with is a reflection of my visual language.’
Since 2011, The BRIT Awards has invited artists, designers, and stylists to design its coveted trophy. British fashion designer Vivenne Westwood wrapped it in a Union Jack and topped it with a bronze helmet embossed with her label’s logo.
Others to provide designs for the statuette include architect Zaha Hadid (2017), British designers Es Devlin and Yinka Ilori (2021), and the Nigerian-born visual artist Olaolu Slawn in 2023. —[O]
Main image: Photo: John Marshall/JMEnternational.
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