Chloe Barnes wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2025

Yesterday, Portrait Artist of the Year programme revealed that Chloe Barnes won the Final of Series 12 of Portrait Artist of the Year.

Chloe Barnes and her monoprint of Brian Cox in the Final

I'm splitting my comments about PAOTY Series 12 and the two most recent programmes into three separate posts:

• Today - a review about the Final and the final and commission paintings produced for the Final by the artist 
• Sunday 7th December: the Winner's Programme and the Commission
• Monday 8th December: - a review of the PAOTY series and approach taken this year, and a summary of why the Judges , rather than the programme, continue to annoy so very many viewers and whether the competition is really a competition.

Followed sometime soon after with the details of how to enter Series 13 in 2026!

This review covers:

• The Final: Artists, Sitter and Set
• The Portrait Paintings for the Final
• The Judges' Perspective
• The Final Portraits - and my comments
• Why Chloe Barnes won.

The Final

The Artists working in the Final - watched by the audience
(left to right) Lauren, Katie and Chloe

The audience for many of the episodes was largely female and middle aged to older; plus very proud parents and a smattering of young people who seemed to be associated with individual artists. I think this probably reflects the audience for the programme too.

They are VERY well behaved - as you have to be when filming is taking place. I highly recommend those that want to, to apply to watch the heats next year - and you'll learn a lot more about this competition is really like!

The Artists

Katie Jones, Lauren Ross and Chloe Barnes
sat on the steps outside Battersea Arts centre

In order of the heat they appeared in, they are

• Episode 3: Katie Jones (Instagram) - A community arts tutor who lives and works in Somerset and has a studio on the Mendip Hills.
• Episode 4: Chloe Barnes (Instagram) - a printmaker with a first class honours degree in Illustration and an MA (Distinction) in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking. She works as a Gallery Production and Studio Manager and lives in Peckham in London. 
• Episode 5: Lauren Ross (Instagram) - an art tutor and painter from Edinburgh. 

You can read more about them in The PAOTY 2025 Semi Finalists + their Exhibition!

The Sitter and the Setup

The Sitter was Brian Cox, the 'media mogul' star of "Succession"who is 79, still active and still acting to great acclaim.

There was no repeat of the craziness of last year when, with absolutely no notice, the contestants suddenly found themselves painting two sitters - with an extra half hour for the challenge!

Instead we had a stripped back set and one sitter this year.

• The Set used a comfortable burnt burnt orange armchair. 

"That armchair is doing a lot of work" Kathleen Soriano

• The cloth hanging at the back was Jute which is very much associated with Brian's home town of Dundee and his ancestors where it has been produced for very many years
• The jute and the armchair, both combined to create a very warm set.

The one benefit for the artists is that were rather nearer the sitter in the Final than they were during the semi final.

The Start: The sitter - Brian Cox - and the setup for the three artists
and how close the cameras are over every artist's shoulder

Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2025

There's a new look to the Annual Exhibition of the ROI  - which is an annual exhibition that features a variety of oil paintings by both established and emerging artists, the majority of whom are members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

The theme of this year's ROI Exhibition is "Home"

I visited last Wednesday for the PV and Awards Ceremony and then again on Saturday afternoon to finish my photographs and it gradually dawned on me that it felt and looked different - and then slowly I realised why that might be.

The Demographic Change

It took a while to work it out - and then I realised, almost all the "old guard" who I've been seeing in the Annual Exhibitions for the last 20 years have almost all gone. 

Of those still alive, relatively few are still painting and exhibiting. 

It feels like the overall demographic of ROI members has really changed - so there are now many more younger artists and many more female artists.

• Older members have been replaced 
• by much younger artists who have done their bit as open artists and 
• who have now progressed to becoming members and 
• in turn, some of them are now officers of the ROI in their middle age. 

I'm now older than most of the people running the show - which feels very different for me too!

I remember well walking around the ROI annual exhibition in 2010 with Adebanji Alade PROI while we discussed how we could make even more of an impression than he was already and become a member!

Last Wednesday, I saw him deliver the most electrifying tub thumping awards ceremony I've seen in years - as President of the ROI. It feels like maybe the engine room has had an overhaul and there's a new drive to reinforce and develop the ROI. 

While on the wall next to the cafe, very sadly, there's a record of a number of the stalwart member exhibitors of the past who have died in the last year. The last year we lost so many in one year was 2022. These included:

• Fred Beckett FROI (1933-2025) who was an ex President of the ROI and the Wapping Group; 
• John McCombs ROI (1943-2025) who never grew tired of painting the Pennine village of Delph and 
• Brian Ryder (1944-2025) -  whose landscapes I always looked forward to seeing and who never ever had a painting rejected by the ROI.  I found these "bon mots" on his website - which I'm sure some of you will value

1. Art is not what we see but what you can make others see.
2. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.
3. A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning plain you end up boring people.
4. Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”

So it felt a bit like you do on New Year's Eve - it's goodbye to the old guard and hello to all the new much younger painters hoping to become members as well as those who have been around a few years and are now running the show!

Interestingly most of those new artists are ones I first came across online. 

 It was good to see that Greg Mason has now become a member and taken over the role of looking after the website and social media  (PS You may remember Greg from Landscape Artist of the Year - when he abandoned the chosen view and still made it to the Final! (His blog post / My Blog post. For the unitiated, I have a memory like an elephant and an archive which services it well!!)

This is his video tour of the exhibition