Iona Roberts graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a First Class Honours in Fine Art Painting (2015) and the Royal Drawing School Postgraduate Programme (2016). Iona’s work was selected for the Federation of British Artists (FBA) Futures exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London in 2016. She was awarded the Trustees' Prize at the Royal Drawing School 2015-16 end of year exhibition, the Stevenston Painting Award at the Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries Exhibition (2016) and the Catriona White Prize for Distinction in Drawing from Observed Reality (2015).
Iona has received a series of scholarships and opportunities to travel, hiking and documenting experiences through locational drawing and painting. She has worked on the West and North Coast of Scotland and in Italy, Bavaria and Madrid including the Iona Hostel Winter Artists residency (Jan. 2017), Royal Drawing School Pignano residency (Oct. 2017), and Richard Ford Award residency to Madrid at the Prado (Sept. 2017). In Madrid, combined with documenting her experience of living in the city, Iona studied paintings at the Prado where she was creating her own visual code whilst responding to the historical artists work. Her sketchbooks and locational work in these variable sites have become a broad visual dictionary when she is composing images in the studio.
Education
2015: Royal Drawing School:Offered a full scholarship at The Drawing Year 2015/ 2016
2011- 2015: Edinburgh College of Art: Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours, Fine Art Painting
Awards and Exhibitions:
2020 – March – Work shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2020 – Approached by the Royal Drawing School to carry out a Painting Commission of large works for a five-star hotel at Hyde Park Corner
2020 - Selected by WASPS to carry out a residency at Skalloway on the Shetland Islands in May 2020
2020 - March and April - A selection of work to be exhibited at ‘21st Century Women’ at Clydebank Museum’s Backdoor Gallery
2019 – October – A collection of drawings and paintings Displayed at the British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London.
2019 - May - Work Exhibited in part of a Contemporary Scottish Landscape Paintings Exhibition, ASPECT, at the Kelly Gallery, Royal Institute, Glasgow
2019 - Awarded a three week residency in October at Dumfries House by the Royal Drawing School
2019 - Offered another solo exhibition at the Compass Gallery
2018 - November - January 2019 - Work Exhibited in the Compass Gallery Winter Exhibition
2018 - November - Work displayed at the Edinburgh Art Fair with the Arusha Gallery
2018 - September - Drawings exhibited at the Index Exhibition at Stoke Newington Library Gallery, London
2018 - June - Drawings exhibited at the Royal Drawing School Buckingham Palace Fundraising event
2018 – May and June – Solo Exhibition at the Compass Gallery:
2018 – Work Exhibited at the London Art Fair, Compass Gallery
2017 -- Selected for the Richard Ford prize after presenting concertinas created in Madrid to the Royal Academy
2017 – November -- Awarded by the Royal Drawing School a three-week residency in Pignano, Italy
2017 -- October -- Received the Richard Ford Award and stayed in Madrid for three weeks, drawing the collection at the Prado Museum
2017 - July - Work Exhibited in the exhibition 'Night Tide' at the Arusha Gallery
2017 - June - Work Exhibited at the Royal Drawing School Buckingham Palace Fundraising Event
2017 – January – Invited and stayed on the Isle of Iona for a residency
2017 – January – Work exhibited at the London Art Fair, Compass Gallery
2016 - Winner of the Trustees' Prize at the Royal Drawing School 2015-16 End of Year Exhibition
2016 - December - January 2017 - Work Exhibited at the Drawing Year End of Year Exhibition 2015/16, Royal Drawing School, Shoreditch, London:
2016 - November - Drawings exhibited in the Best of the Drawing Year 2015- 16 at Christie's King Street, London:
2016 – Winner of the Stevenston Painting Award of £5000 at Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries Exhibition:
2015 – Work chosen for FBA Futures in January 2016. Invited to exhibit at the Mall Galleries FBA (Federation of British Artists) Members' favourite graduates of 2015
2015 – Awarded RSA New Contemporary, work was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2016
2015 - Awarded Catriona White Prize for Distinction in Drawing from Observed Reality
2015 - Compass Gallery Summer Exhibition - Paintings and Drawings chosen to be exhibited alongside artists such as Barbara Rae and Joan Eardley
2015 - Compass Gallery's New Generation Show, 9th July to 1st August
2015 - Degree Show, Edinburgh College of Art: