Akash Bhatt wins Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015

The prizewinners in the 2015 Sunday Times Watercolour Competition were announced earlier today.

Akash Bhatt RWS RBA has won the £10,000 First Prize for his latest painting of his mother - called Blue Room.

Winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015
£10,000 First Place
Blue Room by Akash Bhatt

Over the years the artist has drawn and painted both his parents and developed a suite of work in doing so. His father passed on a few years ago but his mother continues to sit for him.

Akash Bhatt was born in Leicester and now lives in Wembley. He is a member of both the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of British Artists. His work can be regularly seen in the exhibitions of both societies.

Akash also won the London Lives competition in 2010 when his painting featured along the length of Blackfriars Bridge - and I wrote about his win on this blog

The second prize was won by Michael A E Williams for a painting called Land, Sea, Place.

I was unable to identify a painter called Michael Williams who painted using water-based paints when doing my selected artist post in the summer (see below). However the Sunday Times Colour Magazine - which has an article about the prizewinners - indicates that Michael Williams lives in Gloucestershire but has had a very long association with Wales - and that this painting is of the island of Skomer.  As a result, with a few more clues, I've now found his website - and these are some of his recent paintings.

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015 - Second Place
Land, Sea, Place by Michael Williams
watercolour, 74 x 104cms

With those clues I also found two websites with more of his paintings - this gallery site and the Bay Art website which contained this very informative quote about his paintings

Williams is not one to take advantage of water colours propensity for ambivalence. He avoids that wet, blotter-like seepage and slippage, which can easily facilitate atmosphere, approximation and ambiguity. Rather, he rigorously manipulates the challenges of this medium by accumulating discrete marks to gradually build a unifying structure, (he never uses white pigment as a means of reversal or correction). This involves a balancing act between the surface demands of rhythm, pattern and detail (the known) and the desire to actualize light and space (the transcendent)? Consequently, there is a strong sense of particularity in these works that affirms both substance and fragility.

The Smith & Williamson Cityscape Prize (£1,500) was won by Leo Davey for a very effective painting of the view of a canal under a bridge and associated reflections in the water.

As I indicated in the selected artists post Leo has been...

selected for this exhibition in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Try taking a look at his page of watercolour paintings on his website

Winner of the The Smith & Williamson Cityscape Prize
Drip... Regents Canal, London  by Leo Davey

You can see exhibition for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition at three venues on the following dates:

• the Mall Galleries, London from 14 – 19 September 2015 (Admission is FREE)

followed by the Smith & Williamson Tour to

• Castle Fine Art in Birmingham 10 – 18 October 2015; and 
• Guildford House Gallery in Guildford 21 November 2015 – 2 January 2016.

I'll be writing a review of the exhibition once it's open.

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015

You can read more about this year's competition in my previous posts:

• The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015 - Call for Entries - a summary of the terms and conditions of entry and tips for those considering an entry for the first time
• Selected artists - Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015.