RoomFifty launches YUC, an art competition supporting young and emerging creatives

RoomFifty – a place that sells affordable, contemporary art from artists around the world – has launched its first annual Young Upstart Competition (YUC), a free competition aimed at emerging creatives. Running from 27 January to 10 February this year, RoomFifty invites all young creatives who are not already working full-time in a creative role to submit a piece of work in front of a top-line jury. The competition is aimed at anyone over the age of 18, from all corners of the globe.

As a response to the tremulous climate that young creatives have found themselves in, the team at RoomFifty – comprising illustrator Leon Edler, creative director Chris Clarke, designer Ben Longden, creative Ellie Davey and their dog Mabel Edler – decided it was time to do something about it.

After launching in 2017, the team have been using their platform to sell art and tell stories, founding the company on an ethos; that they wanted to connect artists, all the while producing the best commercial art for a wide audience. It’s an online gallery more than it is an online shop, offering limited, museum-standard prints by a curated roster of illustrators and designers globally. At present, there’s a whole host of artists involved with the platform, including familiar names such as Charlotte Ager, Maaike Canne, Aysha Tengiz, Ji Hyun Yu and Leandro Assis to name a few.

The three winning artworks from YUC will be sold as prints for six months on the site, with 100 per cent of the profits going to the artists. The winner will also receive a cash prize of £250, while the top runners up will be displayed in an online gallery.

The judging panel includes Matt Singer, art director at Warby Parker; Alex Citrin, art director at The New York Times; Emma Shore, art director at Bandcamp; Anna Hardinge, owner at How Do You Do? Agency; and Claire Cheung, award-winning print and digital art director.

To apply, you can submit one image via RoomFifty’s online form, and make sure your image is a jpeg and 1333 x 1000 px in size, including a name for the image and short bio and you, your work and the other work you do. It’s important that your image must not have been sold as a print or published previously, and that you, the artist, retains the copyright to the work.

The competition will close at midnight on 10 February, with the shortlist and winners announced on 17 February.