Review: Episode 4 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026

PAOTY Episode 4

As usual, this review of Episode 4 follows my standard format, which covers:

• the three sitters
• the nine artists
• self-portrait submissions
• themes arising in the episode
• who the sitters chose
• the shortlist for a place in the semi-finals of PAOTY 2026
• the winner
• the sitters for the next episode.

The Arti Shah "Cheese" (what they call one of the segments)
- before she chooses which finished artwork to take home.

This post is a bit later again this week due to four days this week spent connecting my neck with the NHS. Those who follow on Facebook will know what I'm talking about!

Yesterday I was supposed to have two more "flexion" X-rays (to be absolutely 100% sure I've not broken my neck in two places!) but that didn't happen due to a paperwork cockup. Then this morning phone calls with neurosurgery sorting it out - and they phoned me! The end is in sight - hopefully tomorrow.....

Episode 4: The Sitters

To me they all seemed to be very good sitters, staying remarkably still.

The sitters were:

• Danny Beard - a British drag performer and singer who won the fourth series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. He has also appeared on other popular television reality tv competitions and tends to do reasonably well. 

Danny Beard - in drag

• Arti Shah -  a person of reduced stature (she's just four feet tall) who is an actress and motivational speaker with over a decade of experience in the entertainment industry. Her most recent roles has involved starring as Paddington in Paddington: The Musical in London’s West End - which won Best New Musical at the Laurence Olivier Awards in April 2026. She's also very active in the world of Creature FX where she with prosthetics, movement reference, and motion capture.to bring creatures to life.

Manny Woodard meeting Arti Shah for the first time

• Yalda Hakim - an Afghan-born Australian broadcast journalist who grew up in Sydney and worked for Australian TV before moving to the BBC and subsequently Sky News as Lead World News presenter. She is also a documentary maker. She is a specialist in Middle Asia and is a fluent speaker in 5 languages: English, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and Pashto - and she's learning Mandarin. She's the daughter of Afghan refugees and her special object was a bowl made of lapis lazuli - which comes from Afghanistan, which was wonderful to see.

Episode 4: The Artists

three of the artists - Sammy, Suzanne and Luke
talking with their sitter - Danny Beard

There is a profile of the artists on the PAOTY website. Below you get a mini profile of each artist which is missing from that page.

THE ARTISTS, in alphabetical order, are:

• Sammy Alam (Instagram) - a fashion student from Montreal, Quebec, Canada now based in London. He completed his Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Central St Martins in 1925.
• Suzanne Barton (Instagram) - A former author and illustrator of children's books based in Oxford. She has done classes with the Art Students League (New York),  Sunningwell School of Art, and Heatherleys. She became interested in oil painting in 2021. Her submission for this competition was her first ever self portrait.
• Oliver Bedeman (Instagram) - a contemporary figurative painter who specialises in portraiture and reverse oil painting on glass. He is based in Oxfordshire and works primarily from life and also as an art teacher. He graduated from the University of Brighton in 2007 with a B.A (Hons) Fine Art Painting. Followed by the Postgraduate Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School. He has been successful in being selected for leading awards eg Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (See my two posts about "Artists with their Paintings" in 2018 and 2024). Prior to this he was selected for The Threadneedle Prize in 2016 and 2018. His track record to date suggests to me he will, in due course, be approved for membership of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Oliver Bedeman - with his self portrait (reverse oil painting on glass)
outside Battersea Arts Centre where PAOTY heats are filmed

• Harry Garner (Instagram) - Now based in Liverpool, he was Born in rural Leicestershire into a multi-generational farming family, he left the family farm to study Fine Art & Art History at the Liverpool School of Creative and Performing Arts, graduating with First Class Honours in 2019. He is now 
• Svetlana Kornilova (Instagram) A Russian artist who now lives in London. She studied art in Russia.  
• Luke McKenzie (Instagram) - an artist and writer based in Newcastle - with a BA (Hons) Fine Art (2024) from Newcastle University. His artwork is inspired by the high renaissance and explores themes of queer martyrdom. He is very used to painting drag queens. He very definitely got paired with the right sitter!
• Sebastien Shead (Instagram) - a retail associate and an art student from a village in North Yorkshire - now based in London. He has a BA in Fine Art (Bath Spa University 2024) which allowed him to spend time on his studies of the methods and materials of the Old Masters. Followed by two years spent studying observational drawing and painting at the Heatherley School of Art. Which means I attended his graduation show this summer.
• Minnie Themba (Instagram) - a fine art student, currently studying for a BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. 
• Manny Woodard (Instagram) - Based in Arundel. She is a sculptor who has developed her drawing activities of late. She began making portraits in 2023 after being accepted into the Worthing Portrait Artist of the Year competition (based on PAOTY). In 2025, she won the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Purchase Prize for Drawing. She now draws from life every week at local art groups, finding the study of faces and character endlessly fascinating

Episode 4: Self Portrait Submissions

THANKS for getting me through my Spinal Shocker

Yesterday was one of those days I will never ever forget.

I walked into A&E at my local teaching hospital to get a CT Scan done on my neck. (I'd had an excruciating pain at the back of my neck the previous week - you will remember my review of PAOTY was delayed until Sunday)

The first thing I was told by the doctor who saw me, who had read the Radiologist's report from the local community hospital where I had my x-Ray done on Monday was that

"You've broken your neck in two places"

A bit of a shocker - as I'm sure you will agree.

So I had ID tag put round my wrist, a cannula put in, bloods taken, a gown put on and a hard cervical collar put on - until I looked like this

Me at the Royal London Hospital
yesterday morning

Being all on my own, (I thought I was just going for a CT Scan for a better picture of my neck), I rang my partner and told him what I'd been told and told him not to come down until things were clearer i.e. saving him from coming and going if I needed to be admitted.

Then I needed to talk, so told all my followers on my Making A Mark Facebook Page what was happening to me.

Apparently, I’ve broken my neck in two places! Just waiting for a hard collar to go on (got it!) Then CT Scan. Then MRI scan. Then a chat with a neuro surgeon….

THANK YOU

Thank you all your kind words of 

support and information and advice 

These kept me going through several hours of 

• arranging a CT Scan and 
• then waiting for the results and 
• then getting signed off by the Neurosurgery doctors - as they could not see a fracture.

I am so very grateful to all of you who commented. 

Your responses allowed me to reply and kept me occupied while I sat and worried about what was happening and what it all meant - and the implications were numerous and horrifying. (i.e. what do you do for the rest of your life if you sever your spinal cord at your cervical spine???)

This morning, one of the neurosurgery doctors rang and said they'd like a couple of more x-rays just to be absolutely safe that there's no fracture. Which I'm very happy to do. Double checking and being super safe is my kind of medicine.

So I've got to go back for two flexion x-rays - with neck leaning forward and backwards. But they're not expecting them to find anything - apart from the degenerative damage caused by my age and osteoarthritis.

I'll be updating all my friends and followers on Facebook with what happened next - because you were the BEST yesterday! You got me through a very frightening experience. 

PS Never ever go to hospital without packing a battery charger!

Review: Episode 3 Portrait Artist of the Year 2026

Apologies for the late publication of my review of Episode 3 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2026. This is not one of my better reviews for a variety of reasons.

I had a few distractions last week 

• Tuesday: Met with Commissioning Editor of a reputable publisher and got commissioned to write a second art book, of which more in due course - but I'm excited and had started jotting things down - which was a major distraction - before...
• Wednesday: got up very early to escort my other half partner for his surgery - and then got sent back home because of no bed;
• Thursday: an excruciating pain developed in the back of my neck (fracture from recent fall or cervical spondylosis?) which painkillers did not dampen down. The only thing that worked was an Icepack - tied on with a scarf! So I went looking for solutions.... which lost a day... plus did a 111 assessment and got a GP appointment and had a very bad night's sleep despite trying every pain medication! 
• Friday: Saw the GP - discussed what it might be; got an appointment for an x-ray and appointment with normal GP for next week. PLUS I developed a very "wet nose" sneezy cold - presumably caught from sitting around in crowded hospitals and GP surgeries!
• Very tired all through Friday and Saturday.

Anyway, so now on to what was supposed to be one of the intended brightspots of the week - my review of Episode 3 of PAOTY Series 13.

I sneezed constantly through writing most of this....

PAOTY Episode 3

"A little bit of judging"

This is my review of Episode 3 which covers:

• the three sitters
• the nine artists
• self-portrait submissions
• themes arising in the episode
• who the sitters chose
• the shortlist for a place in the semi-finals of PAOTY 2026
• the winner

Episode 3: The Sitters

The Aberfan Portraits

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster in South Wales. 

A colliery spoil tip soaked by rain collapsed down a hillside. Around 150,000 tonnes of wet slurry crashed into the village of Aberfan. The Pantglas Junior School was directly in its path and was buried. In total 116 children and 28 adults were killed in the Junior School, part of the neighbouring Secondary School and a nearby row of houses. It happened at 9.15am and no survivors were found after 11am.

A new BBC programme "Unseen: The Aberfan Portraits" tells the story of how paintings were created of some of the children who were lost. (see below for how to watch it)

An artist called William Richardson worked in North Wales, Llandudno, sketching visitors on holiday and celebrities. He was greatly affected by what had happened. He very much wanted to help the families who has lost children. Which is how he came to paint their portraits from family photos. In all he painted about a 100 portraits.

Some of the portraits of Aberfan children lost in the disaster
painted by William Richardson

The paintings were not small, as these extracts from the BBC film illustrate

Jeanette Keane - with the portrait of her sister Edwina

Denise Morgan with her portrait of her younger sister Annette

Importantly, the portraits recreated the children within the family home and enabled people to talk about them - and to them - again.

They are now being passed down to the generations or donated to local museums so that this important record of their existence ensures they will never be forgotten.

I don't know if William Richardson was ever honoured for what he did - but I rather think he should have been.

You can watch the programme about the portraits on BBC iPlayer - Unseen: The Aberfan Portraits

I remember the disaster really well. At the time I was 12, just a few years older than the children who were killed. I'll never ever forget the shock of seeing the television news and the Junior School which was submerged and destroyed by the coal slurry. Inside it were 116 children who never made it out alive.

Pantglas Junior School
and the efforts to retrieve the bodies of the living and the dead

The Pros and Cons of Online Exhibitions for Art Societies (ref. SOFA Winter Exhibition)

Many moons ago, just after I'd taken early retirement, I had the pleasure of exhibiting with the Society of Feline Artists at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery on The Cut, near to both the Old Vic and Waterloo Station in London. Unfortunately, although SOFA exhibited very happily there for 25 years, that gallery "shut up shop" a while back. Since then they've tried a number of alternative venues - and online exhibitions.

The Society of Feline Artists has been exhibiting paintings, drawings, sculpture and other feline-inspired artwork since our very first exhibition in 1995.

This is about SOFA's new Winter Exhibition (17th October - 15th November) - which is not in a gallery, it's ONLINE. 

AND It's a very different kind of review given it's very much focused on

• pros and cons of online exhibitions 
• what you must do when selling art online 
• the legal and regulatory compliance side of online exhibitions selling art

I'm seeing art societies do more and more online art exhibitions - with art for sale. 

I do wonder if all those organising know all the questions they need to ask re what they need to do.

"Welcome to the SOFA Online Exhibition" on the website

This post will comment on:

• viewing the SOFA exhibition 
• Pros and Cons of Online Exhibitions
• savings for the art society!
• buying the art
• selling the art 
• plus Trading, Ecommerce, Money Laundering, VAT and GDPR Regulations

My comments are largely focused on helping SOFA (or any other art societies aiming to sell via online exhibitions) to be more effective and completely legal.

Below is one of my artworks which was exhibited at SOFA many years ago! - of my cat Cosmo (who passed away 10 years ago + more drawings of him). 

It now hangs opposite where I'm sat writing this.

I spy a spider

12" x 8", coloured pencils

selected for SOFA Annual Exhibition 2008 

at the Llewellyn Alexander Galleries

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Artworks

Let's not forget that very many famous artists loved drawing and painting their cats! Never ever "sniff" at somebody who mainly draws and paint cats!

Leonardo da Vinci famously sketched cats in various postures and movements across his notebooks, marveling at their anatomical balance, agility, and grace.

The artwork in every SOFA Exhibition celebrates cats - and if you're a cat fan, you'll LOVE looking at the artwork on this website. Subject matter includes both domestic felines and wild / big cats and the art media and styles are various and diverse.

We are thrilled to showcase an incredible collection of feline-inspired artwork, celebrating cats of all shapes, sizes, and personalities. From bold digital paintings to cozy traditional sketches

• There are 125 artworks in the show. That's about a third of the number exhibited by the bigger national art societies at the Mall Galleries. It's enough to need a large space - but maybe not enough to make the budgeting easy.
• The artwork is by more than 50 artists, who work in a variety of media, from oils and watercolour to pencil and printmaking.

The SOFA Winter Exhibition