Farley Arts Trust Awards & Exhibitions

For over twenty years the Trust has organised the biennial Farley Arts Trust Art Awards and Exhibition to celebrate the outstanding creativity of East Sussex students studying visual arts at GCSE, A-Levels and Level 3 Creative & Applied Pathways.

Images of art works in teh 2024 Farley Arts Trust Awards and Exhibition

The aim of the Awards is to celebrate and raise awareness of the creative achievements of young people in East Sussex schools and colleges. The resulting exhibition of art works and the Awards ceremony promote wider recognition of the importance and value of the creative work done by young people within their schools and give students the opportunity to take their work beyond the classroom and out into the wider community.

Schools with pupils taking Art at GCSE and/or A LEVEL and/or Post‑16 Level 3 Creative & Applied Pathways are invited to submit work by their students within seven categories: 

• Painting
• Sculpture/3D
• Mixed Media/2D
• Works on Paper
• Photography
• Textiles
• Sketch Books

Details of the 2027 Wonderfully Surreal competition to be announced later this year.

Farley Arts Trust Awards and Exhibition

In November 2026 the exhibition will be installed in the Lee Miller Gallery at Farley House & Gallery.  At the Awards event for participating students, their families and teachers, Antony Penrose on behalf of the Awards panel will review the works on display and a guest of honour will present the certificates and prizes. In-kind and financial prizes for each category are donated by a wide range of sponsors including many local and national companies and organisations.

Recent guests of honour have been Joe Hill when he was Director of Towner Eastbourne and Sir Peter Blake RA.

The 2026 exhibition will be open to the public from 2 to 4pm on Sunday 15 November.  All are most welcome to come to see the exhibition and meet the young artists and the Farley Arts Trust team.  If you are interested in taking part in future years we highly recommend a visit!

Application Process

• Schools are encouraged to register promptly to secure places for their students by completing the online 2026 application form here. Link to application form.
• There is an £8 entry fee per student which is payable on final completion of the application form. This can be paid through our online system or an invoice can be raised.
• You or your student will need to upload a high quality JPEG image of the art work - minimum resolution 300 dpi. The image must be suitable for judging, inclusion in the catalogue and publicity purposes.
• A short description (approximately 50 words) will need to be supplied - this must be written by the student about their art work, and will again be used for judging, catalogue and publicity purposes.
• Final deadlines must be adhered to. We have always been able to accommodate works from every school that has registered but exhibiting space is limited so please apply ASAP.
• As Year 11 and 13 students may have left school by this deadline, schools will need to ensure all information for the forms and the photographs are handed over to teachers before the students leave.

Selection and Judging

A panel of Farley Arts Trust Board members, Antony Penrose, Griselda Bear and Rosemary Colebourn, will make the selection of the art works to be exhibited in the Lee Miller Gallery at Farleys House in November. Schools will be informed of selected works in September of that year.

The students whose work has been selected will all be considered Farley Arts Trust Award Winners. They will all receive certificates and their works will be illustrated in the catalogue. One copy of that will be available for each student and after the exhibition it will be available on the Farley Arts Trust website.

Previous Awards Catalogues