Two Dorset artists have been shortlisted for a prestigious art prize, with their work to be exhibited in London.

Alex Lowery from Charmouth and Debbie Lee from Langton Matravers have been shortlisted for the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, a competition for British contemporary representational painting and drawing.

A total of 83 artists have been shortlisted out of 1,144 who entered the competition.

This represents the highest level of entries in the prize’s 13 year history.

Alex’s piece for the competition was an oil on canvas entitled West Bay 293, and Debbie’s piece was an oil on canvas entitled Sadness.

The eventual winners will be selected and announced on Monday, March 5 at an evening event at Mall Galleries in London.

The shortlisted artist’s work will be exhibited at the Galleries from Monday, March 5 until Saturday, March 17.

Ian Rowley, chairman of the organising committee said: “This year, we’ve been staggered by the quality of the entries. There’s a tremendous diversity to the works combined with some bold approaches. A record-breaking 2,194 works were submitted by over a thousand artists, which shows that representational art in the UK is in better health than the art establishment might surmise.

“The judges have now completed the very difficult job of whittling those 1,000-plus artists down to just 83, whose works will be exhibited.”

The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize for representational art, art that seeks to capture the real world, offers a total prize money of £30,000.

The person in first place will receive £15,000 and a gold medal, second place will receive £4,000, alongside the newly introduced People’s Prize worth £2,000.

Young artists aged 25 or under compete for the Young Artist Award of £4,000.

For the fourth year running, the competition is also offering the Brian Botting Prize of £5,000, awarded to an artist aged 30 or under for an outstanding representation of the human figure.

The competition is open to any artist in the UK over the age of 18, professional or amateur.

The pieces that are judged are painting or drawing works of representational art.

The competition aims to promote and support fresh new talent, and was created in 2005.

Judges for the 2018 competition are:

  • Daphne Todd OBE- chair of the judging panel, artist and judge on BBC1’s The Big Painting Challenge
  • Robin Mason- artist and Head of Fine Art, City and Guilds London Art School
  • Johnny Messum- founder and director of Messums Wiltshire
  • Prof Andrew Stahl- artist, Professor of Fine Art and Head of Undergraduate painting at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art in London
  • Benjamin Sullivan- winner of the BP Portrait Award 2017

For further details, visit lynnpainterstainersprize.org.uk