Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Portrait Award 2024: Artists with their paintings

Two portraits in the HSF Portrait Award 2024

If your portrait IS selected for the Portrait Award 2024 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, you can expect the following might happen
  • your portrait will be seen by over 200,000 people visiting the exhibition in London.
  • your CV will be very much enhanced by selection for this prestigious exhibition. This then helps your career when trying to interest art galleries in your work
  • your website will get enquiries for portrait commissions - (so make sure you have one and it provides decent information about commissions and how to contact you!)
  • you get photographed with your painting for this blog post!
What follows is my annual post about "Artists with their Paintings" - all 33 of them!

Somehow I seem to have photographed more artists than ever before! So this is an ABSOLUTELY MAMMOTH BLOG POST!  It's only taken two days. I had to forego my walk today to get it finished!!

Lots of photos and lots of profile info about each artist - differentiating between those who are first time exhibitors and those who are have been selected for the Portrait Award in more than one occasion. 

This is where the painters in this post currently live.

EUROPE
  • UK: England - Wendy Barrett, Oliver Bedeman, Tm Benson, Jane Brodie, Morag Caister, Laura Carey, Catherine Chambers, Alan Coulson, Peter Davis, Estelle day, Peter James Field, Ruth Fitton, Lewis Hazlewood-Horner, Emily Ponsonby, Carl Randall,  Charlie Ratcliffe, Ray Richardson, Ilara Rosselli del Turco (originally Italian),Michael Slusakowicz (originally Polish), Antony Williams
  • UK: Northern Ireland and Ireland - Comhghall Casey, Shane Keisuke Berkery, Daniel Nelis
  • Germany: Dan Gaasch, Massimiliano Pironti
  • Russia: Sasha Sokolova
AFRICA
  • South Africa: Emily Stainer
ASIA
  • Japan - Shinji Ahari

NORTH AMERICA
  • USA: Kyle Hackett, Rebecca Orcutt, George Shapter

What my photographs help you to do - which the online gallery does NOT - is to see the size of the painting relative to the artist who painted it

What the profiles help you with - If you've never entered the Portrait Award you can get a good sense of whether you're working at a similar level. The level of information varies with 
  • whether I remembered to photograph the label (not always - and the website very unhelpfully neglects to provide the information)
  • how much an artist chooses to share (and sometimes overshare). 
I try to pick out the useful information and the good bits and any themes which seem to emerge.

Portrait Award 2024: Where self portraits change to being portraits in interiors

Artists with their Paintings


The selection of the artists photographed for this post is not scientific - and is certainly not complete.  Essentially they are 
  • those who were at Awards Ceremony or the Press View 
  • AND I managed to spot their "Artist" Blue Badge (Awards) or small red oblong sticker (Press View) declaring them to be an artist. 
  • AND they didn't leave before the end of the Press View!
(Tip: never ever hide your label at a Press View. Plus stick to the Artist Button - they're much easier to see!)

The narrative below includes reasonably LARGE PICS - but you have to
  • click the pic to see the LARGE VERSION 
  • click the link below the narrative - to go to the artist's website. Details of where you can see the exhibition are at the end of the post - together with the same post in previous years (2015-2018)
I'll also be posting these photos on Facebook in an album now I've completed this post. But given it's taken two days - I might have a break first!!

There are links to their websites or other social media sites embedded in their names.

UK - ENGLAND


Wendy Barrett


Wendy Barrett - who is actually a lot more smiley than her self portrait
Self (2022) Oil on stretched canvas
55cm x 40cm

Wendy Barratt is a first time exhibitor who has risen to prominence in the last 18 months. Her self portrait which got her into Series 10 of Sky Arts Portrait Artist iof the Year - which she won - also got her selected for this exhibition too! Her preliminary drawing was straight to canvas. She uses a rigger brush to emphasise certain colours and tones.

In recent years, the winning of a portrait competition with a high profile has typically paid off in a major way for the winners - and I now keep seeing Wendy's artwork being exhibited everywhere, from her commission hanging in the NPG to a basement in Brixton where she was exhibiting as a brand new member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters. 

She has also been an Art Tutor for over 25 years and set up the Drawing Room in Worthing to host weekly life drawing classes - which she kept going via Zoom during Covid! This is a story about how she got Back to Life.

Education: BA (Hons) in Design and Communication Media, Manchester Polytechnic

Recent achievements include:

Oliver Bedeman


Oliver Bedeman

Oliver Bedeman's painting is in oil on glass - which means he paints the entire portrait in reverse, starting with the eyelashes! The technique of back painting glass dates back to the Romans and is a method that was once described by Cennino Cennini who wrote the "how to" on late Medieval and early Renaissance painting. It's acquired various terms since then including Verre églomisé. 

If you leave part of the glass without any paint, then you can see shadows from the paint on the rear wall - see below for an example. This catches people's attention and then amazes them when they realise the entire painting has been painted backwards!

Note the shadows on the wall
behind the arm and the head
 
He has painted T'nia Miller who is an actress. He contacted her via Instagram and then arranged a sitting at her home where he took reference photographs and made drawings

Recent Achievements: 
  • 2022: Artist in Residence at Dumfries House, Scotland,
  • 2021: First Prize, Bath Society of Artists, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
  • 2020: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy,
  • 2019: Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Shortlisted
  • Royal Drawing School Tutor - Young Artists Programme at the Ashmolean, Oxford
Previously shortlisted: BP Portrait 2018
Education: Postgraduate Drawing Year, Royal Drawing School 2007-08 ; B.A (Hons) Fine Art Painting, University of Brighton 2004-07.

Tim Benson


Tim Benson - with sitter Adam Pearson
Oil on canvas, 122cm x 91cm

Tim Benson RP PPROI is a first time exhibitor at the Portrait Award and an oil painter who specialises in figurative and landscape work. He also focuses very much on telling the story of people whose voices are less well heard.

His painting of Adam Pearson is the first of two portraits of this well known British actor, presenter and campaigner for neurofibramatosis.

I took this photo of them when they were posing for another photographer and rather liked the three quarter view.

Recent Achievements: 
  • 2018-2023: Former President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters 
  • 2020: Portrait Prize - Discerning Eye Exhibition
  • 2019: Elected member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters
    2019: Elected member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters
  • 2015-2017: Director, Diploma in Portraiture, Heatherley School of Fine Art 
  • Currently a Portraiture Tutor at the Royal Academy Schools and various other art schools in London. 
  • Exhibits regularly with national art societies

Jane Brodie


Jane Brodie (left) with her sitter and best friend Phi (right)
Breakfast with Banana (2023) oil on canvas 61 x 76cm

If you’re lucky when taking photos, you get the sitter too! In this instance in profile as in the painting. This is Jane Brodie with her best friend Phil - who was distracted and pensive at the time of the sitting - and the portrait is called “Breakfast with banana”

Jane Brodie is a figurative artist based in London and the Peak District.  
She works as an Art Director and Graphic Designer for Films and creates Set Designs.

Education: graduated in Architecture in 2009 

Morag Caister


Morag Caister
Late for school with things on my mind (2024) oil on canvas

Morag Caister's recent paintings include a series of nudes and/or figures posing on a bed. It's a very classic theme, much used by Lucian Freud. Her paintings are also now more painterly and include more colour although still retaining a strongly graphic draughtsmanship base. She always starts by drawing from live sittings. This is her first appearance in the Portrait Award although I suspect it might not be her last.

Education: Graduated from Brighton University with a BA Painting (2019)
Recent achievements:

Laura Carey


Laura Carey
I'll never not miss you (2023) oil on canvas

Laura Carey is a first time exhibitor who is currently developing a studio based practice in South Bermondsey. The painting is of her mother under a red blanket while she slept following chemotherapy treatment. The painting was a means of confronting the truth and the pain associated with the cancer and coming to terms with the prospect of the taboo topic of dying and death. In a way it treads the path, trodden by others before her such as Daphne Todd, BP Portrait Award First Prize Winner in 2010 who painted her mother after death.

Education: 
  • 2023 - MA Fine Art from City and Guilds of London Art School
  • BA (Hons) Fine Art Loughborough University

Catherine Chambers THIRD PRIZE WINNER


Catherine Chambers
Lying oil on canvas, 765 x 1130mm (30 inches x 44inches)

This portrait is derived from a series of sketches of a friend asleep at home in Lalibela, northern Ethiopia. It was subsequently developed when the sitter visited the artist visited Chamber's studio in England. He posed on a camp bed but the it was painted as if he was at home. It was particularly important to display the Arsenal Shirt - which was symbolic of the differences between being able to wear a shirt as a fan and enjoying the benefits associated with being an Arsenal player - or just being somebody who was a UK citizen.

Recent achievements:
Education: BA (Hons) in drawing and applied arts University of the West of England

Alan Coulson


Alan Coulson
Yianni (2024) acrylic on wood

Alan Coulson created his portrait of his friend Yianni from initial sketches and reference photographs and then thousands of finely painted brush strokes.

Born in Leeds in 1977, he currently lives and works in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. He has exhibited regularly in both the UK and US. He also has been commissioned to do work ​​for clients including The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, Carlton Books, The Chronicle Review and Club Wembley.

Previously selected on four occasions for the BP Portrait Award: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014
  • In 2012 he was awarded third prize for his portrait of Richie Culver - which was then used to advertise the exhibition across London

Peter Davis


Peter Davis
Stereo (dpitych) (2023) acrylic on canvas

Peter Davis is a first time exhibitor. The idea behind his portrait was to
"explore the viewer's unconscious bias to two juxtaposed portraits of the same Muslim woman"
He was intrigued about the impact different coloured hijabs might have on Fahima who was his sitter . She's not thought about it before. (I had! I'd noticed how much more approachable and friendlt Nadiya Hussein - of BakeOff fame - seemed to be when she stopped wearing a black hijab and started wearing ones in colour. The black seemed far too sombre for her personality). 

I applaud him for tackling a topic which many might well have thought twice about. It's also interesting that a man chose to do this, rather than a woman. Like I said, I'd noticed the difference that impact of colour in a hijab makes - but wouldn't assume a man would think about this!!

His practice is to take hundreds of reference photographs in one sitting, paying close attention to the use of light and shade to inform the tonal contrasts of the finished painting. I'm not quite sure if that is what is intended by the notion that the portrait must be painted from life.

Education: graduated BA (Hons) from the Faculty of Art and Design of Manchester Polytechnic
Recent achievements: selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2020

He is an elected member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts (MAFA) and the Contemporary British Portrait Painters (CBPP) and exhibits widely and regularly across the North of England.

Estelle Day


Estelle Day
Self portrait in Studio V (2024) Oil on wooden board 30cm x 25cm

Estelle Day works from her studio at home in south west London. It was lovely to meet her in the flesh having seen more than one of her self-portrait paintings, where she paints herself in her studio. 

I am personally very "drawn" to inspecting the artistic paraphernalia of her surroundings - and I suspect she had the same impact on the Judges. Her studio is filled with eclectic treasures which she has been collecting since childhood, which she uses for her still life painting. Which I guess is, in part, because she also excels at painting still life.

Education: 
  • foundation diploma at Chelsea College of Art & Design; 
  • graduated in Fine Art and French from Oxford Brookes University. 
Recent achievements:
  • She became a full member of the Society of Women Artists in 2021.
  • exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2023 and 2024
  • exhibited with the Royal Society of Oil Painters in 2022 and 2023.

Peter James Field


Peter James Field
Yeside (2023) oil on board

Peter James Field (b.1976) has exhibited in this exhibition previously. He is an illustrator with an extensive range and number of prestigious clients. He also has a degree in world art history and anthropology, specializing in Japanese culture and taught for three years at state schools in the mountains of rural Japan.

Given this painting and his painting in 2018, I have a feeling he likes painting colourful fabric and black people with interesting faces (and stories maybe?). This sitter chose what she wanted to wear and how she wanted to sit. I particularly liked that he's made a feature of the hands - as not many do!

I also note that he has varied the size of paintings entered for the Portrait Award.

Education:
  • History of Art at the University of East Anglia
  • BA Hons Degree in Illustration, University of Brighton
Recent achievements: 
  • He has exhibited with Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2019, 2020 and 2021). 
  • 2020: Sky Portrait Artist of the Year contestant 2020
Previously exhibited in the BP Portrait Award: 2018 and 2020

Ruth Fitton


Ruth Fitton
Onward (Self Portrait) ‐ Oil ‐ Linen ‐ 39" x 25.5"
in the dress she painted her self-portrait!

Ruth Fitton is a first time exhibitor in the Portrait Award - but I'm confident I'll be seeing her again in future. She lives in London and produced a self portrait of herself in her studio - with her palette at her feet. On the night of the awards, she offered to come in to the press view the next morning wearing the dress she painted herself in. Which is why we have the above - which is very much a first for me! (I loved the comfy painting boots!)

Her solo exhibition "Otherwhile" opens tomorrow at Panter and Hall at the Pall Mall Gallery (10 minutes from the NPG)

Education: Ruth taught herself to paint in oils while also studying for a BA in Music, and on graduating began painting full-time.
Recent achievements / awards include:
  • 2023: Ruth was elected a 
    • Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters - prior to which she was regularly selected to exhibit, and 
    • awarded Signature Status by the Portrait Society of America.
    • received the the People's Choice Award in the Portrait Society of America International Competition 
  • Purchase Award from the Art Renewal Center (2021)
  • 1st Place Young Artist award with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (2020).
PS Do note the efficient, effective and sophisticated options she gives those who view her paintings on her website. Just click "More info" to see what I mean.

Lewis Hazelwood-Horner


Lewis Hazelwood-Horner
The Brambles (2024)

Lewis Hazelwood-Horner was born in the UK in 1992. He's been consistently winning awards and exhibiting since 2010.

His portrait is about two generations of working ceramicists Freya and her father Chris. The way it's painted suggests the way the ceramics are created with a focus on creating the right shapes with the tension of moulding clay within the context of its tendency to warp and bend. It's also interesting to have a portrait where the sitters face away from one another and yet one gets a strong sense of their close working relationship, although I didn't appreciate they were father and daughter when I first looked at it

I like Lewis's portraits because he's in no way averse to painting people in a working context or in painting groups of people. 

Education:
  • 2012 London Atelier of Representational Art
  • 2010 Byam Shaw School of Art
Recent Achievements: He exhibits widely and has won various awards. 

Emily Ponsonby


Emily Ponsonby
Chewing the Cud (2023) Beeswax and oil on panel 156cm x 122cm

Emily Ponsonby (b.1990) is a first time exhibitor at the Portrait Award and has a studio in Battersea.  She is known for her beeswax work based upon the Ancient Egyptians’ Encaustic process; buffing, brushing and scraping pigment into layers of honeyed wax until forms gently emerge.

I particularly liked the fact she's tackled a group portrait and it reminded me somewhat of some artwork by David Hockney, where angles are odd but somehow work.

Education: 
  • 2011-2013 - Leith School of Art 
  • Royal Drawing School
She has exhibited with galleries in the UK and South Africa. She has also exhibited with The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The ING Discerning Eye and The Society of Women Artists.

Carl Randall


Carl Randall
Alain at Kew (oil on canvas 2022)

Carl Randall's painting is called Alain at Kew and was commissioned by the family in the background of the painting. Alain is pictured in front of the Palm House in Kew Gardens. He used the Old Master "Verdacchio" technique of applying semi-translucent layers of skin tones on too of a green underpainting. It highlights the contrast between the blemishes and wrinkles in the sitter's skin with the blossoming flora. You can see how he works in his videos

Carl is a British figurative painter whose work is based on images of modern Japan and London. 

Education: Graduate of 
  • The Slade School of Fine Art, 
  • The Royal Drawing School London, and 
  • Tokyo University of Arts Japan (Masters and then Doctorate in Fine Art - Painting). 
Achievements:
  • He's won The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, The Nomura Art Prize Japan, as well as several other awards.
Previously been selected: 

Charlie Ratcliffe


Charlie Ratcliffe
Callum (2024) oil on canvas 61 x 51cm

Charlie Ratcliffe - He is active as a musician and music producer in both the live-music and film worlds and his sitter is a fellow band member. You can see his portrait on Instagram. He makes drawings from life and takes reference photographs before starting a portrait.

Education: studied Print & Time-Based Media at Wimbledon College of Art (University of the Arts London). 
(Contemporary artworks that include video, film, slide, audio, or computer technologies are referred to as time-based media works because they have duration as a dimension and unfold to the viewer over time.)

Ray Richardson


Ray Richardson
Estuary English (2023) oil on linen

Ray Richardson has lived and worked in Paris, Brussels, Chicago and Connecticut. He currently lives and works in Woolwich, S.E.London where was born in 1964. His work has been described as having a filmic quality where every frame is well considered. There's certainly a strong sense of an unsaid narrative. He's been described as "the Martin Scorsese of figurative painting" for his choice of subject matter. My East End mates would refer to him as a "geezer" (as in the UK not US definition). I found him to be very refreshingly straightforward and straight speaking.

The sitter for his portrait is a young actor who Ray met by chance and had an instant rapport with - with both having working class backgrounds but not working in conventional working class occupations. The title of the portrait refers to a particular accent used to describe an English accent and way of speaking commonly found in areas either side of the River Thames between London and the North Sea - where both of them live.

Education: Graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Goldsmiths in 1987. He's previously studied at St Martins School of Art.

Ilaria Roselli del Turco


Ilaria Rosselli del Turco
Vanessa (2022) oil on panel 27x 20cm

This is a portrait painted in under one hour. The sitter is one who is very familiar to her and she has painted for the last decade. This helped to achieve a likeness quickly and enabled her to focus on achieving a warm image.
"Struck by the peculiar artificial lighting while teaching a painting class, the artist was inspired to paint Vanessa before returning to her class"
Ilaria Rosselli del Turco has Italian heritage but has lived in London since 1999. Born in Genova, Italy, in 1967. Her ancestors were a family of Florentine Renaissance painters, the Rossellis. She followed classical studies in Rome and subsequently trained as an illustrator before turning to oil painting and printmaking, taking classes and teaching herself through the study of Old Masters. 

Recent achievements: her work is regularly included in the 
  • Royal Society of Portrait Painters, 
  • the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
  • the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair
  • periodically in a variety of other exhibitions in the UK and Internationally
Previously selected for BP Portrait Award 2010

Michael Slusakowicz


Michael Slusakowicz 
Double Portrait of Clara (2021) oil on canvas

Michael Slusakowicz was born in Poland but now lives in London. His works are predominantly in painting, drawing, performance and video. He also works as a handpainting artist at Mira Mikati.

His portrait is two perspectives on his friend Clara who is in the midst of trying to decide between two university courses. He says it's symbolic of how we need to hang on to ourselves ("get a grip"?) when makinhg significant decisions.

His work uses a technique which is based on first creating a digital collage of the image and using colours which tend to suggest an other worldly quality.

Education: graduated from Camberwell College of Arts (2008-2011) with a First Class degree in BA Painting

Antony Williams - Winner of HSF Portrait Award 2024


Antony Williams
Jacqueline with Still Life - Portrait Award Winner 2024
Egg Tempera on wooden board;
1222cm x 668cm (48 inches x 26 inches)


Antony Williams is an "old stager" when it comes to this Portrait Award! 
Antony is an artist who has previously had his artwork selected to hang in the Portrait Award Exhibition on 10 previous occasions (in 1995, 1998, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020) and, notably, won Third Prize in 2017.
After Ben Sullivan finally won the BP Portrait Award in 2017 (after being selected 12 times!), Antony became the last of "the regulars" who had not yet won this Award. 

He has also been exhibiting his artwork - largely portraits, figurative and still life - for the last 30 years and has been exhibiting with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters since 1995 - where he was elected a member in 1996. 

His portrait is of one of his regular sitters and includes some of his still life objects which sit in the studio they work in as still life is Antony's other main preoccupation. Indeed I recognise some of the still life objects from paintings which have other awards for other organisations in previous years! 

Antony is simply one of the best when it comes to egg tempera painting and you really must see the painting up close to appreciate how it is painted.

See also:


UK - Northern Ireland and Ireland


Comhghall Casey


Comhghall Casey
Self Portrait (2022) oil on canvas

Comhghall Casey ARUA is a regular Portrait Award exhibitor in 2002, 2013 and 2015. Indeed I'd go so far as to say I've watched his hairline recede while admiring his self portraits in this exhibition! I know I'll be seeing him again in future.

Comhghall is from Omagh in Northern Ireland but has lived and worked in Dublin since 2000. Essentially he is a still life painter - with regular exhibitions of his work. However, he has been making a series of self-portraits every year since he was a teenager and the series now numbers over 50. The series records the physical and mental processes of aging and maturity. He uses a mirror to paint them from life. What I found fascinating is how he has improved enromously over time in both his technical abilities and his confidence as an artist. His compositions get more and more interesting - and then go back to a straight "dead on" view.

PS Comhghall is pronounced as "Cole" as in Porter.

Education: Graduated with BA Hons Fine Art from Belfast Art School (1998)

Recent achievements:
  • 2019: shortlisted for 2019 Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery in Dublin
  • In 2017 he was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Ulster Academy. 
  • Also a regular exhibitor at the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, Royal Hibernian Academy  and the Royal Ulster Academy 
Previously exhibited in BP Portrait Award in 2000, 2013, 2015

Shane Keisuke Berkery


Shane Keisuke Berkery
A Self-Portrait (2024) oil on canvas

Shane Keisuke Berkeley (b.1992 in Tokyo) has a Japanese Irish heritage and lived in lived in Tokyo and the USA until his teens, when his family moved to Ireland.

He is a first time exhibitor who knows how to catch a Judges's eye! This is one of the largest portrait paintings in the exhibition. Above you can see Shane in the flesh next to a larger than life stylised Shane painting a more realistic conventional head and shoulders of Shane - after a traumatic event to his dog Milo. I love the fact his dog is the feature image on his website.

He painted his self-portrait painting his self-portrait in a staircase at the Royal College of Art, while completing his MA in Painting. We've just missed more of his paintings in the Postgraduate Exhibition which was in June.

Education:
  • BA in history of art and fine art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
  • 2024: MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London
Recent achievements:
  • 2019: Shortlisted for 2019 Zurich Portrait Award, National Gallery of Ireland
  • 2017: Shortlisted for biennial Hennessy Portrait Award at the Royal Hibernian Academy
  • 2016: Winner of the Hennessy Craig Award  and the Whytes Award at the RHA annual exhibition
  • artwork included in the Irish state collection.

Daniel Nelis


Daniel Nelis
Man with Closed Eyes (2020) oil on panel

Daniel Nelis is exhibiting in the Portrait Award for the second time, having previously been selected in 2019. 

His highly realistic portrait for this exhibition is of his father with closed eyes. It has previously exhibited at the RSA, RHA, and RUA annual exhibitions. He painted his father at home - in his childhood home - while asleep. It's an absolutely meticulous painting and the texture of the leather chair is as impressive as the texture and colouration of his face and the sweater he is wearing. His painting is proof that a totally meticulous painting is still loved by the jury for the Portrait Award.....

Daniel told me that he always loved the paintings by Michael Gaskell - who had a habit of winning BP Second Prizes - and also got some NPG commissions along the way.

I'm confident I can expect to meet Daniel again in the future.

Personally speaking, as I have recommended very many times before now, if you've got a painting selected for a prestigious exhibition, it's an ABSOLUTE PRIORITY to get a website up and running properly before it opens! 

Recent achievements:
  • 2023: elected an Associate Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy and won the Ireland-U.S. CouncilAward for Outstanding Portraiture.
  • Recent awards include: 
    • RUA Tyrone Guthrie Directors Award 23 
    • RSA Guthrie Award 23
    • IAR Portrait Prize 24
  • 2019: selected for BP Portrait Award 2019
  • His self-portrait won the Royal Ulster Academy Portrait Prize in 2015.

Germany


Dan Gaasch


Dan Gaasch - with his partner Selina who is the sitter
Selina, 2022, oil on canvas, 660 x 546mm 

Dan's Gassach's painting is of his partner Selina in a moment of quite repose

Education: Trained as a Painting Conservator:
  • graduated with a BA in Art History at Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat-Freiberg and 
  • MA in Conservation at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Stuttgart.
Recent achievements:
  • work has been featured on a book cover
  • Participated in a Joint Exhibition in Luxembourg

Massimiliano Pironti


Massimiliano Pironti
Agnese (2023) oil on aluminium

Massimiliano Pironti is a previous BP Portrait Award winner (Third Prize in 2019). Born in Italy in 1981 - in Colleferro, an industrial town south of Rome - he now lives in Germany.

His works are almost exclusively portraits painted oil on aluminium and characterized by very great attention to detail and delivering an immaculate finish.  

The painting challenges conventional concepts of beauty. His painting is of a dancer called Agnese. The date on her back, which she highlights with her hand, is the day on which she accepted she had alopecia and shaved off all her hair. The painting also serves to highlight her bravery in facing up to her condition and enabling her to move on.

Fior me the quality of the painting reinforces Massimiliano as a painter who can 

Education: largely self taught - he values and studies his Italian heritage in terms of artwork of the Italian Old Masters (Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael).

Recent achievements:
  • 2023: his painting “Quo vadis?” was acquired by the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart and has become part of its permanent collection.
  • 2021: commissioned by HM King Charles III (when he was Prince of Wales) to paint the portrait of the Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh, as part of the project-exhibition “Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust” which were exhibited at the Queen's Gallery and Holyrood Palace. This is now part of the Royal Collection. He also took part in the BBC2 documentary about the project and the paintings.
  • 2020: Invited to exhibit at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition + significant commissions.
  • 2019: "Quo Vadis?", his painting of his grandmother, won Third Prize in BP Portrait Award 
Previously selected for the BP Portrait Award in 2018 and 2019

We've started a new tradition of being photographed together - to repeat the photo taken in 2019.

Massimiliano and me (2024)

Russia


Sasha Sokolova


Sasha Sokolova
The Last Portrait (2020) oil on canvas

Sasha Sokolova was one of the artists I couldn't find when I was doing the list of selected artists. That's because she uses Sasha rather than Alexandra as her first name.

The portrait is of her grandfather Aleksandra Sokolova who was also an artist as well as a WW2 veteran. He was a frequent model for her and would offer guidance as an art mentor during the sittings. Her gradfather died, age 94, while she was finishing this "Last Portrait".

She exhibits regularly in Russia and has also exhibited in Poland, Spain and Germany - and now the UK. 

Education:
  • graduated with honours from the Sergey Andriyaki School of Watercolour and Fine Arts in Moscow 
  • Masters of Fine Arts at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

AFRICA - South Africa


Emily Stainer


Emily Stainer
Frederick (2023) oil on canvas

Emily Stainer was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1980; in 2015 returned to her home town Johannesburg, after eight years spent living in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

This portrait is of her son Frederick and she chose to paint him in the round to connect him to a historic painting tradition. I liked the Holbein blue green background which really makes young skin pop. I'm not surprised this caught the Judges eyes.

She likes to paint small and intimate - and she also likes to paint children. She also paints despite three energetic children - one of whom was a baby when she also attended the 2017 preview! It was lovely meeting her again, this time with a different child!  

Education: Both degrees were obtained with distinction
  • MA in Fine Arts, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (2003); 
  • MA in History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2006). 
Previously selected for the BP Portrait Award in 2006 and 2017. 

ASIA - Japan


Shinji Ihara


Shinji Ihara
1111 (2023) oil on canvas

Shinji Ihara was born in Fukuoka, Japan.  He had an interpetetor with him so I was able to find out more about the subject of the painting.

The ethos of the painting appears to be enigmatic. However, I was told that the painting is about the death of the cat after he had reached a great age - I think he was 22 when he died. Shinji's partner is is cradling the deceased cat in their home, which is as homes often are. The bunk beds are not made, the coffee cups are sat on the table. He found that painting the portrait meant he re-experienced all the emotions he felt at the time, every time he started to do more work on the portrait - which took over 90 sittings.

It's an immaculate painting in terms of both story and the quality of the painting.

I immediately identified with the story, their relationship with their cat and what it feels like when they're gone. I drew my cat when he died - and was so very glad I did.

 
Education 
  • 2010 - BFA in Oil Painting of Hiroshima City University;
  • 2012 - MFA in Oil Painting Materials and Techniques of Tokyo University of the Arts
Receent achievements
  • a close association with the Drawing Lab at Hiroshima has led to a number of opportunities
  • he has also exhibited with other organisations

NORTH AMERICA - USA


Kyle Hackett


Kyle Hackett
After Image (2022) Oil on Panel 31 x 35inches

Kyle Hackett (b.1989) is an American and is both an artist and an Art Professor. He's also a first time exhibitor.

His paintings explore race, class, and social standing through approaches to self-representation and the constructed image. I took a look at the portraits in his website and noted that many were monochromatic.

This is a portrait about being a black man in a white centred world. It's a self portrait and he is dressed in academic robes. He's referencing the concept of "double consciousness" which, according to WEB Du Bois refers to the experience of seeing the world both through your own eyes and through the white gaze.

To be honest, when I met him, I just wondered if he felt a little unsettled being an American in the UK apotheosis of portraiture in the UK. 

Education
  • 2013: MFA (LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA); 
  • 2011: BFA in Fine Arts as a McNair Scholar (University of Delaware).
Recent achievements
  • he has had a number of solo exhibitions and received numerous honors and awards over the years.
  • He also participates in some 5-6 group shows each year.
  • in 2020, he received the 
    • DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Individual Artist Fellowship Award, Washington, DC
    • DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Art Bank Collection Grant, Washington, DC

Rebecca Orcutt - HSF Portrait Award Young Artist of the Year


The Young Artist of the Year Award was won by Rebecca Orcutt
for Before It’s Ruined (or an Unrealized Mean Side)
(oil on canvas, 610 x 455mm)


Rebecca Orcutt was a very young exhibitor in the BP Portrait Award 2015 - see
Selected Artists - BP Portrait Award 2015. Nine years later and she's come back to win the £9,000 Young Artist Award for her self-portrait Before It’s Ruined (or an Unrealized Mean Side).

Rebecca Orcutt is an American artist. Her work has appeared in shows around New York and the United States and internationally in exhibitions in Copenhagen, Denmark; Leipzig, Germany; at the National Portrait Gallery in London; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Ireland.

Education: 
  • bachelor’s degree in painting from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts
  • MFA from the New York Academy of Art in New York City where she was a President’s Scholar and was also awarded the Leipzig International Art Programme Residency in Germany. 
Recent achievements:
  • 2024 - Young Artist Award, HSF Portrait Award
  • 2021 - finalist in the $25,000 Bennett Prize 2.0 for Women Figurative Realist Painters
  • 2019 - honourable mention in the Bennett Prize 2.0 for Women Figurative Realist Painters

George Shapter


George Shapter
Will and Kenji at Home (2020) oil on board

George Shapter is a product designer, currently based in Brooklyn, New York, but originally from London.

He works at Instagram, exploring new ways to help creators have fun and succeed on the platform. Previously he led on the digital product strategy and design for a paper products firm. He's got some great recommendations on LinkedIn!

So is he the first completely amateur artist to get to the exhibition of the Portrait Award? It's entirely possible. He completes one or two large portraits each year, while pursuing his work as a product designer full time.

His portrait is of two friends at home - surrounded if not engulfed by their houseplants. It came about as a wedding gift to the two of them. The NPG Panel comments on how it reminds one of the great Hockney double portrait of Christopher Isherwood with Don Bachardy - where one looks at the other who looks straight out at the artist.

Judges like echoes of great art!

Education: BA in Art History at Trinity College, Cambridge University

Do please let me know if there's anything I've got wrong so I can correct it.



Artists with their Paintings in Previous Years


Prior to this photos of artists with their paintings was combined with a review of the exhibition.

REFERENCE: HSF Portrait Award 2024


Previous blog posts include



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Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, July 16, 2024
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