Rachel Jackson, a doctoral researcher from Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), has been shortlisted for the prestigious Derwent Art Prize 2026.
Selected from over 5,000 entries submitted by 2,100 artists across 77 countries, Rachel is one of just 71 finalists chosen for the international exhibition.
The shortlisted work, Dress Autopsy – Clothing Stains, is a direct output of her PhD research and was on public display at the OXO Gallery in London as part of a showcase that spanned the full breadth of contemporary pencil art, from hyper-realism to experimental abstraction.
Rachel’s research investigates how drawing acts as a critical lens for dress history. By focusing on a historical baby dress from the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, she developed a methodology she calls ‘The Autoptic Eye.’ Borrowing techniques from anatomical and pathological illustration, the work uses multiple viewpoints and volumetric tone to ‘dissect’ the garment.
“My research at AUB has combined the fields of drawing and dress history”, Rachel explains. “I’ve researched how drawing can be used as a method to investigate worn clothes in collections of textiles and dress.
“The research and my drawings make it clear that drawing can be a useful method of looking more closely at objects, it can sharpen your focus to allow you to notice more details, generate new questions about what you are looking at and generate tacit embodied knowledge – which enabled me to feel the dress object through pencil on paper and gain a physical bodily knowledge about how it had been made through the act of drawing it.”
The 2026 shortlist was selected by a distinguished panel of international art experts, including Kathleen Soriano, an independent curator and regular judge on Sky Arts’ Artist of the Year; Modupeola Fadugba, an acclaimed Nigerian multi-media artist; and Charles Villeneuve de Janti, Director of the Jean-Jacques Henner and Gustave Moreau National Museums in Paris.
Kathleen Soriano described the 2026 selection as a punchy exhibition that serves as a testament to the fact that drawing continues to go from strength to strength.
“It was great to be involved in the Derwent Art Prize 2026”, Rachel adds. “I was able to meet different artists who specialise in drawing at the OXO Gallery private view and I left feeling inspired by the different materials, different scale and the surfaces that they were drawing on.”
The Derwent Art Prize and shortlisted works, including the AUB-led research piece, featured at the OXO Gallery in London during April.
