This Artists’ Award and Exhibition, first made in 1994, is sponsored by the Irish-based company Glen Dimplex. The £15,000 award is intended to mark a level of achievement in the work and practice of exhibiting artists, of any age, using any medium. The award is open to Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland or elsewhere within a given period, and to non-Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland during that period.
The artists shortlisted in 1998 were sculptors Siobhán Hapaska and Janet Mullarney, sound and installation artist Hans Peter Kuhn, painters and multi-media artists MacDermott and MacGough and installation artist Philip Napier. The exhibition brought together a number of new works, not previously exhibited in Ireland, and earlier pieces closely related to the work for which the artists were nominated. The winner was Siobhán Hapaska.