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Monday, November 28, 2022

Prizewinners at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2022

I'm very pleased to see that both the website of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Mall Galleries have lists of the Prizewinners at the Annual Exhibition 2022 - currently on display at the Mall Galleries until 10th December 2022

You can view them via the following links 


AND Alastair also handed me a list of the prizewinners when he saw me having a cup of tea.  The Mall Galleries are back to producing a listing for each exhibition!

I use it as a checklist when going round trying to spot the prizewinners!

I've written about the exhibition in The Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2022 & Events and will be writing further about what I thought about the exhibition and the artwork I liked in another post this week.

Prizes and Awards


Here's the list - split into types of awards. 
  • Links to the artists' websites are embedded in their names. 
  • I've also taken the first paragraph of their "About" page to provide a description of the artist underneath. (As in it's a good prompt to make other artists go and look and see what they say when introducing themselves!)

Cash Awards

I've listed the awards in order of cash value.

The Phyllis Roberts Award

An award of £2,000 for an artist aged 30 or under.
Kayoon was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1997. She studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and painting at Siena Art Institute before returning to England to specialise in portraiture at Heatherley School of Art. She currently works as a figurative painter in London. She looks to Italian and Korean art as influences in her painting practice.
(Some of you may recall Kayoon was the Heat Winner of Episode 1 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2020. She also painted Clive Myrie for Portrait Artist of the Week.)

Self Portrait with James, 100 x 75 cm
Kayoon Anderson

I remember thinking when I took a look at this that it struck me as being very angular and architectural. Small wonder!

Somebody was very critical of this painting on my post about the prizewinners on Facebook. So, in return, I offered my opinion of his comment. In my experience, sniping is almost always associated with people whose paintings were not selected for exhibition - but I can only speculate....

The Alan Gourlay Memorial Award

In memory of Past President Akan Gourlay, an annual prize of £1,000, awarded for a painting of outstanding merit.


  • Tom Stevenson ROI, "The Long Meadow in Moonlight", 31 x 72 cm (46 x 87 cm framed)
Tom Stevenson was born in 1984 and is based in Devon where he works from life to create paintings that follow a path between figurative and abstract styles to explain the light and colour of his surroundings.
Tom is a member of the ROI, British Plein Air Painters and the South West Academy. I'd like to see Tom get himself a proper website - and not rely on a link on his instagram account which does not work.

The ROI Themed Painting Prize

£500 for the standout painting on the theme of ‘Changing Times’.


  • Kayla Martell, Roe, 20 x 25 cm (25 x 30 cm framed)
Kayla lives and paints in the beautiful countryside of Wicklow, Ireland. She loves bringing to life the spirit and beauty of every day things on the canvas. Each painting is a little conversation between her and those special characters. Kayla uses alla prima techniques in her work, and maintains thick paint and expressive brushwork.
This was hung a little high on the wall for me to appreciate properly. There's a case for rehanging prizewinners if they cannot be seen properly.

Apparently the painting muses on the appeal of Roe v Wade.

The Small Painting Prize

An award of £250, open to members and non-members, for the best small painting on display (maximum dimension of 12 inches or 30.5 cm, excluding frame).


Sarah Manolescue is an observational artist with an unrelenting fascination for light and its effects. Working in oil and predominantly plein air, Sarah prefers to work on small boards and in one session, so to preserve a freshness and immediacy in her work. Rarely does she have a subject or composition in mind, instead she waits for inspiration to strike, first placing large plains of colour, before working into the wet paint to add more information where she deems necessary.
Small paintings can be very affordable and if priced astutely can be sold very quickly in an exhibition - as this one has done (it was priced at £620).

The ROI Emerging Artist Prize

A prize of £250 and the opportunity to spend a day with one of the Institute’s members, for an artist aged 30 or under at the time of submission.

  • Liza Sivakova, Anxiety, 25 x 15 cm (28 x 28 cm framed)
Born in 1997 in the Russian Federation. Graduated from St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts 2022.Now (lives?) in Dresden, Germany. It would be nice to see a proper website - with a proper bio. 

The Menena Joy Schwabe Memorial Award

An award of £250 for an outstanding oil painter.

A mathematician and physicist who replaced science with painting. His About page on his website has an artist statement which says "I paint".

The Tony Merrick Memorial Prize

An award of £250 in memory of the late Tony Merrick ROI (1948-2018).

Michelle was born in Pembrokeshire and has lived and practised as an artist in rural Mid Wales, moving to Shropshire 5 years ago.
Working primarily in oils and occasionally watercolour, she draws upon the surrounding landscape as an infinite well of ideas and inspiration.
This was a very attractive painting and I can well understand why it won a prize.

Art Materials Awards

Winsor & Newton Young Artist Awards (for artists aged 30 or under)

First Prize: £1,000 Winsor & Newton Fine Art Materials

An Ordinary Day by  Jie Zhuang,
I thought this was one of the most impressive paintings in the exhibition. Another excellent painting by this artist is on the extreme left on the wall on which this is hung on the extreme right

I'd like to know more about this artist. However apart from identifying s/he has also had artwork exhibited at the Salmagundi Club in New York, there is precious little about this artist online. I was left wondering whether this artist is actually "young".

Second Prize: £600 Winsor & Newton Fine Art Materials; 


London-based painter and sculptor, Robert studied at Glasgow School of Art (BA Fine Art Painting and Printmaking 2017) and The Heatherley School of Fine Art (Portrait Painting Diploma 2021).
I thought I'd seen this painting before! See my recent blog post Review: Episode 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9) in which I reference this self-portrait painting in the first 'theme' of the heat. However Robert did not make the shortlist.

Robert studied at Glasgow School of Art (BA Fine Art Painting and Printmaking 2017) and The Heatherley School of Fine Art (Portrait Painting Diploma 2021). He has been selected and exhibited in juried exhibitions (Royal Society of Portrait Painters; Royal Institute of Oil Painters; Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize; Wales Contemporary/Cymru Gyfoes International Art Competition )

Third Prize: £400 Winsor & Newton Fine Art Materials
Two paintings by Thomas Golunski
The prizewinning painting (Ami Li) is at the bottom
Thomas Golunski is an artist based in the south of England, working in primarily in Oils and Charcoal. Currently, he is exploring how traditional methods and techniques impact contemporary paintings and the way in which they are consumed within a digital sphere. Through an urgent and tense recreation of fleeting moments, Golunski seeks to explore the way illumination can be used to aid narrative storytelling and suggests not only the transitory nature of light but also a fleeting moment of atmosphere.
I was very impressed with the two paintings by Thomas Golunski which were hung together on the Young Artists Wall in the East Gallery - although I thought them way over-priced (and - importantly - also not comparable with the prices of paintings on this website, which is not good business!), This is, I think, why they haven't sold. Lovely paintings stay on the wall unsold when artists pitch their prices far too high. 

Thomas does videos of his approach to painting on his Facebook Page

Frank Herring Easel Award

An award of a versatile easel.

Andrew Hird is a contemporary figurative painter of landscapes, cities and the English coast. All his work is from personal experience based on location sketches in pencil or paint. These “plein air” studies provide the working material for studio paintings, always referring back to the feeling of standing in the environment
I'm always intrigued as to the reasons why a painting gets an easel award. In this instance I couldn't work it out - other than that somebody liked the painting - which seems to have been painted from a very steep slope

Publication Awards

The Artist Magazine Award

The winning artist will be featured in a forthcoming issue of The Artist magazine, print and digital editions.

I'm very used to seeing Adam's seaside paintings which I've been a big supporter of. It's really great to find he's now developing a new still life theme based on packaging labels and everyday items. (Do look carefully at the pic on the packet!)

The Dry Red Press Award

The winning work will be published as a greeting card by Dry Red Press in their ‘Prize Winners’ range.


Lizzie Black is a landscape artist living in Mousehole, Cornwall. Rooted in a tradition of plein air painting her work follows the changing patterns of the day, season and weather scape.
This painting shouted summer at me - which is especially welcome as winter starts!

The (Non-Cash) Medals / Memorial / Other wards

The Le Clerc Fowle Medal 

In memory of Anne Le Clerc Fowle, presented annually for an outstanding group of paintings.

Four paintings by John Walsom

John is an English painter who works "en plein air", in front of the subject, whenever he can. He's a council member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Wapping Group of Artists, and an elected member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and Chelsea Art Society. He has works in the collections of HM The Queen, Oxford University, and Hampton Court Palace.
He's also a qualified architect and as been a full time architectural illustrator for over 20 years.

This was unequivocally one of the most impressive hangs of four paintings in the show. When entering artwork via the open submission, it strikes me that many non-member artists don't always think about 
  • what the paintings would look like if hung together 
  • and/or whether submitting paintings with connected themes and colour palettes might result in more artwork being selected. 
The March 2021 issue of "The Artist" magazine has a feature on John's urban paintings.

The Dartington Crystal Chalice

Presented annually to a member in recognition of outstanding service and contribution.

Linda has always been drawn to the intricate beauty of small things and in recent years it has been the botanical world that has inspired her. One of the most important things that she tries to portray in her paintings is light. Ever since she became an architect she has been fascinated by the way that sunlight illuminates a subject and recently how it brings botanical subjects to life. She left her career in architecture in 2005 and has enjoyed great success as a professional artist ever since. She exhibits and sells her work every year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the ROI and the SBA.
I know Linda from the botanical art world. Linda excels at very refined and accurate oil paintings of still life involving flowers and/or fruit - which sell very well. She was elected a Full Member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 2016 and is now on the Council.

I particularly liked how the display of her work was enlivened by the complementary neutral tones of her frames.

As you can see, I've been reviewing this exhibition for a very long time (but sadly not in 2020 or 2021). You can find links to my previous reviews of exhibitions below.

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