Review: Episode 3 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 12)

Artists in PAOTY 2025 Episode 3

This is my review of Episode 3 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 which was filmed (as Heat 5) in April 2025 and broadcast on Sky Arts / Freeview / Now TV on 15th October 2025.

This review covers the sitters, the artists, themes arising during the episode, the selections made by the sitters and judges - and who won!  Did you get it right this week?

....and I'll tell you a little secret at the end....

Episode 3: Sitters

The grinning sitters - not that anybody paints a smiling person!
Top right: James May
Bottom left: Emma Barnett; Bottom right: Billy Porter

The three sitters in the third episode are as follows:

• Billy Porter: An American actor, singer, and fashion icon, known for his roles in Pose and his distinctive red carpet appearances and his substantial reputation as a Broadway singer. He was hosting the Olivier Awards with Beverley Knight the previous evening. He brought a rather iconic necklace which included a portrait of his dead mother.
• James May: An English television presenter, author and journalist known for his work on car shows like Top Gear and The Grand Tour. He brought gis folding Moulton bicycle with his which he has been using since the early 90s.
• Emma Barnett: A British broadcaster and journalist, known for hosting shows on BBC Radio 4 and BBC News such as Women's Hour (2021-2024) and the Today (2024-current) programme Her special item was a giant pair of glasses.

Episode 3: The Artists

After the painting has finished - the artists pose for their group photo
on the steps outside Battersea Arts Centre

All the artists are listed below alphabetically by surname - but are not differentiated between professional and amateur. The link to their main 'contact' site is embedded in their name and social media sites follow - if available.

As always I've dug around online, and these profiles provide more information than the programme does.

The mini bio provided in the programme skips over some rather important information about some of the participating artists.

The artists in Episode 3 are as follows (and we have another heat where most artists have surnames in the first half of the alphabet!)

• Arthur Bloye (Instagram) - Lives and works in London. Studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, following a foundation year at Camberwell College of arts. Since 2021, he has taught and managed the Beckenham branch of art-K, where he fosters creativity among a new generation of artists.
• Shirley Chi (Instagram) - a painter and illustrator who is also an art school co-ordinator based in London. Her background is in Visual Arts and Museology. She enjoys producing art with mixed media although she currently favours oil painting. She always pursues narrative, nostalgia and childhood memory in her works and has exhibited in various spaces in London.
• Sayani Drury (Instagram) - She lives in Reading and works as a lead commercial manager. This is about her journey in art
• Aodán Feeney (Instagram) - Lives and works in Galway in Ireland. He is a digital construction co-ordinator and an emerging self-taught figurative painter. His artwork tends to evoke a sense of introspection and emotional intensity. He was recently awarded an Arts Council Ireland, Agility Award (2023) and was shortlisted for the prestigious Zurich Portrait Prize 2022. He has also exhibited at the RHA.
• Eileen Healy (Instagram) - an artist and musician from County Cork in Ireland. Her website indicates she is one of Ireland's top figurative artists based in Cork city - and looking at her website and Instagram I'm persuaded by her claim! She studied Fine Art at the Crawford College of Art (1988).  Selected to show in various open exhibitions over the years. Her work is in the permanent collection the Crawford College of Art, University College Cork and The OPW.
• Katie Jones (Instagram) - Lives and works in Somerset. She is a community arts tutor working with the charity Heads Up Somerset delivering art for wellbeing workshops near Wells. She also runs courses and workshops from her studio on the Mendip hills

at its core, self-portraiture is about the search for and articulation of identity, how we see ourselves and how we wish to be seen by others. As I age, my knowledge and understanding about my own identity shifts and expands, and this is what I find interesting. I paint in oils and pencil on paper and wooden board.

• Ellie Kerr-Smiley (Instagram) - a portrait painter based in Newbury, Berkshire. Graduated 2016 with an MA in Creative Writing. Has been working full time as an artist since 2021 and has a residency at the arts centre ‘The Base’ in Greenham. Her process is unplanned and intuitive - and she had a baby last October! (REVISED 1910.25. Many thanks for Danny Green for working out Ellie's name actually was - and not as indicated on the subtitles)
• Stu Lee - Lives and works in London and is completely self taught - which seems an odd statement on his website given that he has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from London Metropolitan University; MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art, London; currently pursuing studies in a Master of Research (MRes) program
• Roger Stephenson RIBA OBE (Instagram) - a retired architect based in Macclesfield. He retired from his architectural practice in Manchester in 2021 but is a Visiting Professor for architectural students in Liverpool and Hong Kong.

Next, the self-portraits......

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Episode 1: Self-Portrait Submissions 

This week I've got a theme in the next section which relates to the self-portraits. 

The self portrait wall in Battersea Arts Centre

FORMAT

Most submissions always adopt a portrait format

• Portrait format x 8
• Landscape x 1

SIZE: (this is size by my eye / "you know when you see it")

There were more large and larger than average self portraits in this heat

• Large x 2
• Large/Medium x 2
• Medium x 3
• Small x 2
• Tiny x 0

SCOPE

I could claim people have been reading my reviews! That's because over half contrived to have a self portrait which featured hands as well as at least the upper torso or most of all of their body. Essentially there were two extremes - head only or trying hard to impress!

• full size or most of body (including hand) x 2
• head, upper torso and hand(s) x 3
• head and upper torso (no hands) x 1
• head and shoulders x 0
• head x 3

Episode 2: Themes 

As always, when I watch the programme (which is typically at least twice and sometimes three times), I try to identify themes which are either:

• recurrent golden oldies - ones you really need to get to grips with if you want to participate in a future programme
• ones unique to this particular episode
• matters relevant to portraiture or being an artist

Are the broadcast episodes in the same order as the Heats?

My understanding is that the heats are NOT broadcast in the order that they were filmed.

I'd love to know where Episodes 1, 2 and 3 were in terms of the order of the heats - because I have a theory that the judging changes in the later heats based on who the Judges know they have already shortlisted and then sent through to the semi-final. So in the later heats they will be looking for people who are "unlike" those that have gone before.

Note my comments in relation to the winner and ponder on the order of the heats.....

Staging of Self Portraits

Artists who paint "head" and "head and shoulder" paintings are still getting through to the heats. 

However this heat suggests that the selection of those who are painting more of the person - and bigger paintings - may be more biased towards those who have had a good think about how to STAGE themselves within a painting. Hence we had:

• the body of Arthur Bloye lying down idly looking at his laptop on the floor - underneath a pre-raphaelite painting of "Chatterton" by Henry Wallis - which portrays a talented life cut short. John Ruskin called the painting “faultless and wonderful”
• the full body (feet as well as hands) of Aiden Feeny sat on a chair in a room with his three legged cat walking past
• The head and upper torso of a man (Stu Lee) portrayed from waist level looking up - which apparently started from a self-portrait by Lucian Freud (which is, of course, picked up by those Judges who know their portraits!)
• an odd upper torso painting of a woman (Ellie Kerr-Stanley) with one hand surrounded by a graphic illustrative motif

My view is that we always have just heads / head and shoulder portraits being selected - but that there will be always be very stiff competition as to which ones make it through.

Similarly there will also be larger self portraits of more of the artist - but this type of portrayal might well need to be distinctive in some way to get selected. 

My guess is that those which look like "stuffed shirts" will not be thought good enough. Whereas providing a strong sense of the knowledge and/or character of the artist might well be advantageous.

The Sitters influence the outcome

I think the sitters are really important to the outcome of each heat. In this heat we had a sitter who fell asleep....

Most really good portrait artists will produce decent portraits of anybody - but as they all know they also produce a fair number of duds when the sitter is difficult to portray.

I do think that artists who get "the best sitter" are at a distinct advantage and we typically see this reflected in the heat paintings produced.  I've noticed that it's often the case that 

• one sitter will produce two short listed artists (as happened in this heat)
• while another will produce none (as happened in this heat)

What's really difficult is predicting who will be "the good sitter" and who won't be. Which is why I often have a bet with myself as to whether I can identify which sitter will produce the best portraits and who will be the most difficult to portray. 

Interestingly, in this heat I thought that 

• the best sitter was probably going to be Emma Barnett - but I'd forgotten to factor in that many artists have never painted anybody wearing glasses! So dead wrong on that score!
• I didn't think that James May would be a good sitter as he seemed so monochrome - how wrong was I?
• I very much doubt it if I could have been as phlegmatic as Eileen Healy when her sitter fells asleep - he was nearly horizontal in his chair!  So while the head was horizontal, she just got on with painting around and above eg the suit - but she had a plan for achieving her portrait

"l might have to give him a poke" Eileen Healy

Distance from the sitter

The distance between Stu Lee's canvas and Emma Barnett as the sitter

There was one shot in the programme which I thought demonstrated extremely well what the artists are up against in terms of the distance between artist and sitter - which is particularly acute for those who work from life.

No way would any decent portrait artist paint a portrait from this sort of distance - and that's the main reason why you see so many digital devices used by artists in the show.

I think all the artists taking part and painting from life should get a medal for "extreme fortitude in the face of a very big gap!"

Professional vs Amateur

Much less is made of the professional or otherwise status of the artists these days.  I think it's recognised that professional painters can also work in another capacity as well. I also think that I'm seeing fewer "just out of art school and claiming to be a professional portrait artist" types.

Paint coverage

Close-ups of some of the self-portraits indicated quite sparse application of paint. I'm not used to seeing the weft and weave of the canvas - to me it speaks of an amateur artist.  Given that at least one of te judges loves the juicy application of oil paint, one can only wonder if this is a wise idea. It speaks to me more of economy in the use of art materials rather than choice.

TIP: Go and study professionally painted portraits in eg the exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery or by members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters - and see if you can find many (any?) portraits where the artist seemed quite keen to use paint sparingly. How many of these paintings betray the weft and weave? 

Art Materials 

You can tell how experienced an artist is in using their art medium by the art materials they are using. They slip in views of materials being used right the way through the programme. 

I know they get offered materials to use by Cass Arts - but I cannot imagine anybody wanting to use art materials which they weren't familiar with. Which is why I was very surprised to see somebody using what appeared to be a brand new box of pastels. Just saying....

Cats in Portraits

I used to have a saying which went "cats sell well" - which they do. Including a cat in a self portrait works well so long as the judges do not hate cats! They didn't seem to have a problem with them.....

The Portraits and the Judging

A technical comment on "expert" judging

A thought occurred to me while I was watching Strictly Come Dancing last Saturday when the Judges were explaining their views with a lot of TECHNICAL and VERY EDUCATIONAL comments. based on a vast amount of experience over many years. It made me think how educational the programme is to all the aspiring dancers in the UK

Then I thought about the The Great Pottery Throwdown and The Great British Bake Off and The Great British Sewing Bee shows. These too have VERY experienced professional experts in the actual "doing" (eg baking / pottery / sewing) of the competition who are judging the output of their contestants.

Which made me wonder why we don't have THREE very experienced professional artists - and not just one  artist - as Judges of the Artist of the Year Shows. 

• Why does this programme not have the same quantity and quality of technical and educational comments by people who have very many years of experience of how media works and how to paint better rather than the effusive or glib or speculative comments that the other judges sometimes provide. 
• Is the programme pretending that professional artists cannot articulate their thoughts for television? Despite the fact very many have also spent years teaching others to paint?
• If I was paying to view this I'd want a lot more "bang for my buck"!

In this episode, I think Kate Bryan had decided at the beginning that we were going to have a deeply psychological heat - and kept running with that theme throughout.  Either that or the film editors created that theme for her from the edited film. I'm really not sure curators are the best people to comment on the field of psychology without any practical experience or qualifications. 

Who the sitters chose

Below you can see ALL the heat portraits grouped according to the sitter. These are the most useful and effective photos provided by Sky Arts. Except I do wish they'd show the whole portrait... Put them together and those who need to be shortlisted shout out!

Billy Porter

Portraits of Billy Porter by (top right) Athur Bloye
(bottom left) Eileen Healy and (bottom right) Sayani Drury

Billy Porter chose the portrait by Sayani Drury, because it reminded him of his mother and made him emotional.

The cropped portrait by Eileen Healy gets short shrift from the photographer above (eg see James May below) and I do wish they'd include the whole portrait - otherwise it's treating each portrait as a "paint a head" competition.

I thought the fact Arthur Bloye could do what he did given he is colour blind was absolutely phenomenal! I also really liked his self-portrait but would have liked to see more lush use of paint.

James May 

Portraits of James May by (left) Roger Stephenson
(top right) Katie Jones and (bottom right) Aodán Feeney

James May chose the portrait by Aodán Feeney - which was not the most flattering, but he'd said at the beginning that he hoped the portrait would address his weaknesses.

I suspect he demurred on the portrait by Katie Jones as it made him look a lot younger and a bit Brad Pittish - and he probably didn't relish the ribbing he would get.

The two on the right made it to shortlisting.

Roger Stephenson was very brave to tackle the full length image - but he worked far too small in my opinion (i.e. it's much easier to paint bigger images with bigger brushes!!) and "broke" his right leg just above the ankle.

Emma Barnett

Portraits of Emma Barnett by (top left) Ellie Kerr-Stanley
(bottom left) Stu Lee and (right) Shirley Chi

Emma Barnett chose the painting by Stu Lee - maybe because it is the more direct vision by a presenter "looking to camera"

I'm afraid Ellie's obsession with pink did not do her any favours. On second viewing, it also occurred to me that the portrait maybe looked a bit more like her than Emma.

I think Shirley Chi demonstrated that pastel is a very useful option for oil painters - who have already demonstrated via the self portrait that they can paint in oils - who want to be able to go big and work fast. There's a very well established tradition of artists who work in both oils and pastels (or charcoal). A pity that pink scribble added at the end jarred for some of the Judges. Maybe they should think seriously about the colour of the backgrounds to the sitters?

The Shortlist

Episode 3: Artists waiting for the shortlisting

The shortlisted artists were

• Katie Jones
• Eileen Healy
• Aodán Feeney

I predicted two of them! These are their paintings - the self portrait and heat painting - shown together below - with my comments.

Artwork by shortlisted artworks
left to right: Katie Jones, Eileen Healy and Aodán Feeney

Katie Jones

Self portrait and heat painting by Katie Jones

Katie Jones is a hyperrealist artist who is exceptionally good at painting eyes and the colour tones in skin - and rather less good at painting wrinkles and signs of aging. 

However her portraits have impact.  Her approach of painting just a head and the suggestion of shoulders and clothing on a white background is every effective - particularly when the background colour he was sat against was so "in your face" and one that jars with flesh colours. They also look like they would fit in well in most contemporary rooms.  

Kate Bryan kept referring to the suggestion of psychological heft behind her portraits - and while I get that with her self-portrait, where it's a very reasonable comment to make, I simply don't get it in relation to James May.

She was also very surprised about how much she accomplished in the four hours. I wasn't. What she did IMO was a reflection of her experience and time spent painting.

Eileen Healy

Self portrait and heat painting by Eileen Healy

Eileen knows how to handle paint and seems to have a "take no prisoners" approach to portraiture. She is not into "pretty" and what she sees is what you get - plus substance.

Looking at the two paintings side by side makes me think she's interested in a certain set of colours and tones and maybe rarely departs from these.

I thought her rendition of the jacket was amazing - although she has convinced me it is leather rather than the material it was made of.

Her inclusion of the necklace of the mother's image was included and suitably toned down so it didn't dominate in the portrait as it did in real life.

Aodán Feeney

Self portrait and heat painting by Aodán Feeney

I thought Aodán's self portrait was really good. It was a good likeness, he'd done the complete figure "full on" including feet (i.e. feet not just shoes - and feet are far more difficult!) and created a very believable person. Plus including the three legged cat was pure genius!

I was less enthusiastic about his heat portrait - mainly because the colouration was a bit off.

What the Judges were saying about the psychological meaning of the shadows and psychology was just incomprehensible. Aodán demonstrated clearly in the self-portrait that he paints light well. What we have in the heat painting is an unfinished portrait by somebody who is used to having more time. I don't think what's there in his heat painting - apart from the head - means any more or less than that.

PAOTY 2025 Episode 2 Winner

Heat Painting of James May by Katie Jones

The winner was Katie Jones - which I thought it might be when I saw her post on Instagram about the upcoming episode yesterday morning.

So that's two artists in a row (in Episodes 2 and 3) who have both painted small self-portraits and small heat paintings. 

My conclusion?

• Either the Judges know something about the space where the commission portrait will hang 
• Or they think they've already selected the winner of the series in a previous heat which has not yet been aired.....

We shall see......

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A post shared by Katie Jones (@katiejones_somerset)

Next Episode

The sitters for Episode 4 were not announced at the end of the programme. 

Whether this is because they haven't settled yet on what order they are broadcasting the heats in... who knows?

(Note: I've subsequently found out from one of the artists that this episode was actually Heat 5 - make of that what you will!)

Reference: Previous posts about Portrait Artist of the Year

Series 12:

• Start date for Portrait Artist of the Year Series 12
• Review: Episode 1 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 12)
• Review: Episode 2 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025 (Series 12)

Website: Sky Arts Artist of the Year