THE HARLOW Arts Trust are delighted to introduce the three distinguished judges for the Harlow Open 2025:

Juliet Bowmaker: With over 30 years in the creative industries, Juliet began her journey studying Art History before opening galleries in Nottingham and Cambridge. Her career spans curating, consultancy, and collaborations with major art fairs and light festivals. Now Chair to the Suffolk Craft Society, she remains a passionate advocate for the applied arts.

Alexis Harding: A celebrated contemporary painter, Alexis has been pushing the boundaries of abstraction and representation since the mid-1990s. His innovative, time-based material experiments have been exhibited nationally and internationally. He is the winner of the 2004 John Moores Painting Prize and in 2023 he was a jury member for this prize. Alexis also teaches in the Fine Art Department of the University of East London where he is MA Fine Art Course leader.

Weng-io Wong: Sculpture Town Artist in Residence (STAIR09), is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, and video, Wong reflects on human behaviours and emotions in the digital era. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from RMIT, Australia, and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (2024), her work draws from her cultural heritage in Macao.

The prizes on offer for this year’s Harlow Open include the Sue McDonald Prize for Painting and a new prize the David Mitichison Prize for Sculpture. David is the former Head of Collections and Exhibitions at the Henry Moore Foundation and he has just stepped down as a Harlow Art Trust Trustee after 16 extraordinary years of service. There are cash prizes for these awards and those winning First, Second and Third prizes. The First Prize winner also gets the opportunity to have an exhibition for a month in the Gibberd Gallery Window Galleries.