The Arts Foundation announce the four Shortlisted Artists of the Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2025 for Visual Art.
The Visual Art Award includes artists working in any area of the visual arts including installation, sculpture, photography, sound, painting and cross art-form practice. Meet the Shortlist:
Exodus Crooks is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist and educator, interested in self-determination and how it is steered by religion and spirituality.
Mani Kambo is a multidisciplinary artist primarily working in textile, print and moving image, based in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Raheel Khan is an artist and musician exploring the interstices of sound, installation and performance.
Leo Robinson lives and works in Glasgow. In his work, Leo constructs speculative systems of knowledge and ritual through the lenses of religion, psychoanalysis, and diasporic experience.
With thanks to our independent Jury members: Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Projects, The National Gallery Priyesh Mistry; Artist Sinta Tantra; and Curator of Liverpool Biennial, Marie-Anne McQuay said:
“The Arts Foundation Futures Awards are an affirmative and confidence-boosting platform for artists, that comes with much-needed financial resources. It’s been an honour to participate with my fellow jurors, Sinta Tantra and Priyesh Mistry and wonderful to encounter practitioners from across the whole breadth of the UK. It’s a huge privilege to immerse in the timely and often poignant work of the four shortlisted artists: Exodus Crooks, Mani Kambo, Raheel Khan and Leo Robinson, all of whom have been recognised for their distinctive contributions to Visual Art. Each is outstanding in their own right; Crooks whose multidisciplinary practice tenderly centres Black disaporic experience, relationships with self and spirituality; Kambo’s textiles, fabric dyeing and printmaking which draws on personal symbolism connected to religious and familial rituals & beliefs; Khan’s interlocking sound, text, installation and performance projects interrogate notions of heritage, society and collective consciousness; Robinson’s world building with mixed media and performance creates & narrates origin stories and fictional systems of belief and knowledge.”
Priyesh Mistry added:
“It’s been such a pleasure to join the jury of this year’s Arts Foundation Futures Awards for Visual Art. All the shortlisted artists are at such exciting points in their careers. Exodus Crooks has a wonderfully unique and generous way of holding and creating space for audiences while reflecting on themes of received knowledges through the matriarchal lineage. Mani Kambo’s fascinating practice explores and reassesses the layered history of symbols and what they come to represent within our interconnected world. I was also taken by Raheel Khan’s experimentation and how he uses sound and sampling techniques to explore different personal and societal histories. Leo Robinson’s installations are unique in his questioning of heritage, combining disparate cultural traditions and philosophies to create hybrid surreal worlds that are both mythological and magical.”
The Arts Foundation has a long history of supporting visual art, and Mary Jane Edwards, Director of The Arts Foundation says:
“The four shortlisted artists’ are a testament to the strength and calibre of visual arts practice in the UK. Each artist is pursuing highly personal and original ways of thinking and making work that resonates deeply with a wider public. We are delighted to be supporting their artistic development at a critical moment in the early stages of their respective careers.”
The Visual Art Award is supported by The Yoma Sasburg Estate.
Read more about this year’s awards.
The Arts Foundation is a registered charity that supports individual artists and creatives in the UK with unconditional financial Fellowships of £20,000 through the Arts Foundation Futures Awards. Since it was founded in 1993, the Arts Foundation has awarded over £2 million to the most promising artists in the UK at a pivotal moment in their careers to enable them to concentrate on their creative development, experiment, and realise their artistic potential.