On Wednesday 28 February, the winner of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2024 was announced as Monica Popham, a Gibraltarian who now lives in the UK and mostly paints in acrylics.
The Science Museum Group partnered with Sky Arts to set the 2024 Landscape Artist of the Year prize commission to capture the story of Orkney’s central role in the UK’s transition to low-carbon, renewable energy.
The Orkney Islands were selected as the location for the commission as their renewable energy industry is leading the world in both science and innovation, harnessing the region’s powerful elemental forces such as the wind and tides and placing it at the centre of a renewable energy revolution. Once dependent on fossil fuels from the Scottish mainland for energy, Orcadians have been leading the way in embracing renewable energy with over 100 percent of the islands’ electricity now generated by local renewable sources*.
The panoramic artwork colourfully depicts the view from Hammars Hill Wind Farm, looking across a vista of fields and homes towards the small island of Eynhallow on the far left. To the right you can see three radiantly lit turbines in the foreground and speckled through the landscape, and in the distance the straight between islands. This stretch of ocean is subject to strong tidal surges and is the location of tidal turbines which also generate renewable electricity that powers the islanders’ homes.
Monica Popham’s work entitled Orkney and the Energy Within will join the Science Museum Group’s art collection, which contains over 15,000 items, including paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture, kinetic and digital works. It builds on a long tradition of art at the museum, stretching from its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851 to collaborations with contemporary artists today.
As a landscape artist and illustrator, Monica’s work focuses on the tangible quality of sunlight, and how it interacts with architecture and landscapes. She has worked on a variety of projects, from large-scale murals and book covers to private commissions and exhibitions.
Monica Popham, winner of Landscape Artist of the Year 2024, said: ‘Orkney is a stunning landscape with huge skies and great sweeping panoramas, and you can see the weather moving in from miles away. I’d never been anywhere like this before and found the islands inspiring. The wild elements on Orkney provide the island with a bountiful supply of energy but also coupled with all the innovation, it is a place that creates a beacon of hope against the climate crisis’.
Jessica Bradford, Head of Collections & Principal Curator at the Science Museum, said: ‘Throughout history, artists have captured the transformative impact of science and technology, on our lives and across our landscapes. Popham’s work brilliantly tells the story of Orkney’s pioneering renewable energy industry, while expressing the islands’ bracing beauty, dynamic weather systems and exquisite and ever-changing light. The scene is both bucolic and charged with energy, giving us a strong sense of how the island and its residents have embraced renewables’.
Orkney and the Energy Within by Monica Popham can be seen on display in the Science Museum on Level 2 between Mathematics: The Winton Gallery and the Information Age gallery.
