Second Prize at RBSA Portrait Prize Exhibition 7th May-8th June 2024.
100 by 75cm
A painting of Vanessa, a personal trainer at my local gym and her wife. I wanted to celebrate the miracle of birth, made more so as two women come together to create and nourish new life. Vanessa is holding her wife’s baby, a scene which achieves unusual balance because next time her wife will carry her baby. The composition is dynamic with Vanessa lying diagonally across the canvas brought back around with the embrace of her wife.
Selected for the ‘Society of Women Artists’ Exhibition at The Mall Galleries 25th-29th June 2024.
100 by 80cm
Vanessa, a personal trainer at my local gym, is shown here with her wife. The painting celebrates the miracle of birth, made more so as two women here have come together to create and nourish new life. Vanessa is holding her wife’s baby, a scene which achieves unusual balance because next time her wife will carry her baby. The triangle is one of the strongest geometric and architectural shapes, equalising forces along its axis. In this piece, the triangle appears in various forms as a motif. The women themselves form a triangle, and will become a triangle when the baby arrives, and are balanced against an abstract geometric background.
Private Commission
80 by 70cm
A double portrait commission commemorating 25 years of being together.
It was 54 years ago that David Hockney painted a double portrait of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy. That painting was considered a daring portrait showing the honesty of their gay relationship. In this painting ‘Twenty Five Years’, instead of sitting on separate armchairs Rob and Martin are sitting together on a sofa. Times have moved on and, in 2022, the scene is less a challenge to the established order and instead exudes a cosy familiarity.
It is also a portrait where the hands and feet talk just as much as the faces about their personality and relationship. A priest and a counsellor. The painting was a tonal challenge of yellow hues which help to frame the sitters and give the portrait that warmth. The details of the rug and the checked shirt give the painting further depth.
Private Commission
Our gaze like violence breaks the silence of an intimate moment between the artist and their sketchbook. Clothing pervades the painting. From the paint splattered apron like a surgeon simultaneously healing and cutting into the patient, which exerts a presence and wraps around the figure like a canvas, making the subject the frame on which it hangs. The coloured hair of the artist reflects the splashes of paint as though they have escaped the confines of the borders of the apron. But the body here is also a clothing, splashed with tattoos and words, a permanent fashion item worn everyday and always stylish and creating a unique identity. Clothing needs accessories to enhance them, and here the hairband, headphones and piercing complete the ensemble.
120 by 85cm
75cm
2023
50 by 40cm
This painting plays with illusion, my hand holds the mirror, making the viewer connect to the image as though they are actually looking at their own reflection. A leaf falls infront of the mirror so there is a dynamic push and pull with the mirror both sitting infront and behind the honeysuckle. The colours are harmonious, the pinks and greens in my face and top are woven through the honeysuckle. The title of the self portrait references the Greek Myth Narcissus. A beautiful youth falls in love with his own reflection and then turns into a narcissus flower.
Shortlisted Royal Society of Portraiture 2023
Exhibited at the Mall Galleries, June 2023, with Society of Women Artists
Our gaze like violence breaks the silence of an intimate moment between the artist and their sketchbook. Clothing pervades the painting. From the paint splattered apron like a surgeon simultaneously healing and cutting into the patient, which exerts a presence and wraps around the figure like a canvas, making the subject the frame on which it hangs. The coloured hair of the artist reflects the splashes of paint as though they have escaped the confines of the borders of the apron. But the body here is also a clothing, splashed with tattoos and words, a permanent fashion item worn everyday and always stylish and creating a unique identity. Clothing needs accessories to enhance them, and here the hairband, headphones and piercing complete the ensemble.
Painting from Life
Private Commission
An image of a mother and child, but also an image of every mother and every child, and also an image of the eternal motif of the mother as goddess, the Madonna, and the child as the future of humanity, carrying the weight and expectation to realise humanity’s potential. The mother’s lap is the child’s earthly throne, a place of safety and comfort. The black clothing of the two disappears and melds them back into one continuous connected form.
12 by 16 inches
Painted from life 2023
2022
Oil on Linen
40 by 50cm
A portrait of my mother following an operation removing Basal Cell Carcinoma. She was proud of the stitches and asked the surgeon whether he did embroidery! The focal point is not the scar but her eyes, which emanate her vulnerability but also her inner strength.
2022
Self Portrait
SOLD
20 by 16 inches
Painted during the 3rd Lockdown 2021. House bound and very much part of the home furniture, reinforced by the merging of textures and colours of the sofa and jumper. Painted in shades of grey, a reflection perhaps of the more limited palette of my lockdown moods.
Shortlisted for the second stage of the selection process for the Royal Society of Portraiture 2020 Annual Exhibition.
2020 Self Portrait
20 by 16 inches
Painted in January during the third lockdown in England. The grey scene reflects the weather and the somber time we are living in. Trying to find comfort in the warm snug dressing gown with a pose of holding tight. An honest portrait of our times, a time of introspection and solitude.
12 by 16 inches
This self portrait is the culmination of a year of investment in painting figures and portraits from life in very limited timeframes, from 5 minutes to half an hour. The key for me was to gain sufficient confidence in capturing the essence of the subject through bold brush marks. I finally turned the brush on myself. By constraining the painting time and the colour palette, the result feels more honest and immediate, while exposing depths and, I feel, more of my hidden personality.
LONGLISTED FOR RUTH BORCHARD SELF PORTRAIT PRIZE 2021
Self Portrait 2020
24 by 18 inches
This self portrait is more than a self portrait, it could be considered a portrait of the nation while we are united locked down in our homes in 2020. Painted after testing positive for Covid it captures a desire to feel comforted with food supplies and toiletries wrapped up in a dressing gown. The warm light and colours emphasise the need to feel safe. The expression on her face is almost as though we the viewer have disturbed her sanctity.
Self Portrait painted from life. Painted from inside my studio from a reflection from a mirror outside. In lockdown there is the sense of the outside world ceasing to feel as real, as accessible. The mirror creates a reflection of the inside outside, like a dream of escaping the confines of indoor life. But the frame creates a boundary again. The motifs of the outside reflected on the glass, and painting on the wall resonate with the trees outside and blur the boundaries between “here” and “there”. The painting on the wall is Van Gogh’s painting ‘The Starry Night’ which he painted from the window of his asylum. My hand tries to open the door but the world outside feels locked. Time feels frozen and I feel very much like a still life with my mug and light.
Painted using a limited palette of 3 colours and white.
Sold to Bernardine Evaristo!
Delighted to Win First Place in Sky Portrait Artist of the Week 2020 for my portrait of Bernardine Evaristo Booker Prize Winner 2019.
18 by 24 inches, Oil on Board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPYa2xa8m6Y&feature=emb_logo
Winner of Sky Portrait Artist of the Week!
2020, Oil on Board, 16 by 12 inches
Selected ING DISCERNING EYE exhibition 2020
There is a challenge in modern life and society of learning to be alone and spending time with oneself. The challenge of learning to be alone has taken on a new dimension in the lockdown, with technology becoming our surrogate society, our connection to a wider world that has otherwise disappeared from view. But alas, as many of us are learning, technology does not make us any less alone. Rather, as the subject here, aloneness needs to be learned, and can be cultivated through reading and writing. So that the art of being alone becomes about not only being with oneself. But immersing oneself in the world through thoughts and ideas, through an understanding that the fundamental aspects of what it means to be human have not changed and are accessible to us via the printed page. As the mystic Osho wrote: “You misunderstand aloneness as loneliness; it is simply a misunderstanding. You are sufficient unto yourself.” This painting seeks to capture the quiet and contented contemplation that comes through an appreciation that one can be lonely in a crowd, and yet fully engaged with the world while alone.
Highly Commended in 2019 TALP Open Art Competition organised by The Artist and Leisure Painter Magazine in the ‘Artist Category’.
The portrait was a commission of a brother and sister. The composition seeks to bring out that they are the best of friends, content in each other’s company, while living their own separate lives. Both are very individual with divergent interests, with are lost in their interests but engaged in the world. The painting employs a studied natural technique within an overall loose style.
2017, Private Commission, Oil on Linen, 100cm by 90cm
Painted for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Week, 2021
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week, 2021
Featured as one of Sky TV’s favourites.
Painted for Sky Arts Portrait of the Week, 2021.
Known for her roles as Clare Devlin in the Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls and Penelope Featherington in the Netflix period drama Bridgerton.
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week 2020
Oil on board
20 by 16 inches
For Sky Portrait of the Week
Painted for Sky Portrait for the Week
50 by 50cm
Oil on Board, 2020
Painted for Sky Portrait for the Week
18 by 14in
Oil on Board, 2020
Painted for Sky Arts Portrait of the Week
2020, 46cm, Oil on Board
Oil on Board, 2020,
For Sky Arts Portrait of the Week
40.5 by 52.5cm
Shortlisted for the second stage of the selection process for the Royal Society of Portraiture 2020 Annual Exhibition.
Oil on Board, 2020,
Painted predominantly from life
40.5 by 52.5cm
Private Commission, 40 by 40cm
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week 2020
Oil on Board
20 by 16 inches
For Sky Portrait of the Week
2020, Oil on Board, 18 by 24 in
Painted for Sky Portrait Artist of the Week
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week 2020
Oil on board
20 by 16 inches
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week 2020
Oil on board
20 by 16 inches
Painted in 4 hours for Sky Portrait Artist of the Week.
Jill Nalder (born 1961) is a Welsh actress and activist. She is known for her career in theatre as well as her contributions to HIV/AIDS activism.
She was the inspiration behind character Jill Baxter in the Channel 4 series It's a Sin.
Portraits for NHS Heroes
Oil on Canvas
Faye is a physiotherapist working in North Tees Hospital. She is based on one of the COVID 19 wards delivering both respiratory and mobility assessments and treatments to assist with the recovery of the patients.
Oil on Board, 12 by 16 in
Painted for Sky Portrait Artist of the Week 2020
Oil on Board, 12 by 16 in
Painted for Sky Portrait Artist of the Week 2020
Akram Khan painted from live Facebook feed for Sky Portrait of the Week, 2020
Oil on Board, 12 by 16 in
2020, oil on board
Painted for Sky Portrait of the Week
16 by 12 inches
12 by 16 inches
Oil on Paper
12 by 16 inches
Oil on Paper
Latest Commission. 100cm
A natural portrait capturing brother and sister who have taken a moment away from their book and stick. Together but lost in their own thoughts.
Oil on Linen, 100cm
Jackson’s Open Art Prize 2019 Longlisted out of an incredible 5366 entries. If you want to see the selection and/or fancy voting for my painting please click here:
https://jacksonsart.awardsplatform.com/entry/vote/QXVqwJAz?keywords=brothers&chapter=&category=
Two brothers playing on a beach in Ibiza while their mother reads her book. Capturing the personality, interpersonal relationship and energy of the two boys was important. I sought to do that by putting them in context, capturing the intensity of their play through different frames of action and also by putting them on a circular canvas, which reflects the world, but the one that mattered to them in the moment, i.e. one that is contracted down to their immediate environment.
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
120 by 85cm
50 by 70cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
5 years old. The colour combinations were chosen to bring out Hattie’s cheeky personality. A pot of sweets helped bribe her to sit still for this commission!
2017, 50 by 40cm, Private Commission, Oils on Linen
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
110 by 150cm
7 years old. The portrait was a commission. She is still at the start of her life but beginning to look forward to the future. I wanted to capture that essence, and the lighting, by the window of their period home. And also to bring out the promise of being 7 years old, with most of life still ahead, that we can all remember.
2017, 50 by 40cm, Private Commission
Oils on Linen
2010
Private Collection
Oil on Linen
75x50cm
2015
10 by 70cm
Private Collection
2014
100 by 100cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
2014
100 by 100cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
2014
100 by 100cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
2016
100 by 70cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
2016
100 by 70cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen
2015
100 by 70cm
Private Commission
Oil on Linen