The Power List 100 | Art Review

ArtReview's Power 100 is an annual ranking of the most powerful people in Art and is always worth a look. 

The top five in the 2023 Power 100 listing by ArtReview

Similarly it's always worth a read of what ArtReview are saying about what "they" have noticed has changed - see Gauging spheres of influence and schools of thought is about more than momentary fads - with "They" being their secret global panel of c.40 people who are spread around the globe.

The Power 100 list is where, every year, ArtReview exposes, enlists and accounts for the workings of international contemporary art. Not in the usual sense in which ArtReview does this (critical analysis and general commentary about the artworks that are put forward into the world), but rather in terms of the more general infrastructure of the artworld. Why is certain art being made or seen? How is it seen? (And the reversed version of those two questions.) Who decides what is seen? And what, more generally, is the relationship between making and seeing? It’s an attempt to illuminate some of the professionalised artworld’s obscured corners and track its shifts and changes over the past 12 months.

The general themes coming through strongly are as follows:

• change is happening
• an adjustment of the places which influence
• art has a purpose with artists as activists
• an increase in the number of artists who are outside the European–North American axis of influence
• establishment figures regain prominence - as the world recovers from the Pandemic - and remain focused on the luxury / high stakes art market
• gallerists on the list tend to be associated with multiple outlets/locations

I have to confess I haven't got a clue about most of the names. How about you?

Wendy Barratt is Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (Series 10)

Wendy Barratt won the 10th series of Portrait Artist of the Year on Wednesday night last week. She is, in my opinion - and in the opinion of many of those whose comments I've seen online - a very worthy winner. 

I predict good things and a lot of commissions in Wendy's future due to her skill in painting portraits. She's both grounded in drawing and traditional skills and yet has a very contemporary style of painting which both appeals to a wide range of ages and tastes - and looks good in contemporary spaces.

Wendy's PAOTY Portrait Paintings
(left to right: self portrait submission; heat (Nicky Spence);
Final (Dame Joan Bakewell); Semi Final (Emma Bunton);
Commission for Final (her husband Fred)

This week's review has been postponed while I travelled north and then moved "my inheritance" south at the weekend. The intention was to start writing the review on the trains up and back - but inevitably it didn't quite work out like that. Then I experienced a domestic emergency when I got home which delayed matters further - but here we finally are!

I'm going to do the Final and the Commission separately so Final today and hopefully Commission tomorrow.

This review covers: 

• The Final: Artists, Sitter and Set
• The Judges' Perspective
• The Final Portraits - and my comments
• Why Wendy won.
• READ: How to enter the competition in 2023

The Final: Artists, Sitter and Set

The Finalists

The three finalists are:

• Wendy Barratt
• Davide di Tarantino
• Lorena Levi

You can read more about them in Which PAOTY Semi Finalists will be in the PAOTY 2023 Final?

For me, one artist in the Final had been a foregone conclusion since Heat 6. Wendy Barratt had 

• amply demonstrated her artistic skills, sensitivity and mental toughness in her heat to make her presence in the Final a foregone conclusion - by me. 
• Her subsequent calm and well considered performance in the Semi Finals simply outshone everybody else and I must confess by the end I in no doubt she would be selected for the final - but was also assuming she would win!

I was rather more surprised by the other two. Although both offered a great range in terms of style and technique, I thought there were also other artists who should have given them a challenge. Instead of which their decisions about how to impress at the Semi-Final Stage backfired somewhat. Or maybe they weren't sufficiently different.

Resulting in Davide and Lorena becoming the other two finalists. They offered:

• Davide - the ability to paint portraits as if they were produced in the past - but always small
• Lorena - an approach where likeness is not always delivered and a technique which relies heavily on line but is not intended to be illustrative

Of the three, I think Wendy was probably the most experienced portrait painter - from life and with reference to photos.

Sitter and Set

The Sitter

Dame Joan Bakewell

For the tenth series, the makers of the series decided to honour Joan Bakewell (i.e. The Right Honourable The Baroness Bakewell DBE HonFBA FRSAl ) by asking her to sit for the Final.

As Joan had her 90th Birthday in April 2023 - when Series 10 was being filmed - this last episode of the 10th series is to be Joan Bakewell's last appearance on Portrait Artist of the Year. She's been hosting from the very beginning - but she is now not always able to make the filming for every episode.

I for one will be extremely sorry to see her disappear - not least because her comments on the Judges choice and views about indiivdual portraits were very often much in line with mine!  

However I and am very glad to see her being the sitter for the Final. Not that she sat still a lot. In fact she was probably one of the worst behaved sitters in this series! :)

"She's a great sitter, bad at sitting"

I loved the clothes and colours which highlighted Joan's inimitable sense of style. I absolutely loved them.

Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters - Annual Exhibition 2023

The Annual Exhibition 2023 of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters continues at the Mall Galleries until 16th December - and this is my review of it.

This review is going to focus on:

• The overall "look" and content of the exhibition - what I noticed about what had changed
• Paintings which jumped out at me - in a good way!
• Observations on framing and pricing

East Gallery + Private View

I've paid two visits to the exhibition. The first to the Private View when it was great to see a lot of artists I've not seen in a very long time. The second was last Friday when I got the chance to actually take photographs of the artwork in the three galleries without huge numbers of people in front of them!

I've loaded my photographs into three albums on my Making A Mark Facebook Page:

• ROI Annual Exhibition 2023 - West Gallery (57 items)
• ROI Annual Exhibition 2023 - East Gallery (21 items)
• ROI Annual Exhibition 2023 - North Gallery (16 items)

Unfortunately, Facebook appears to be suffering from malfunctions this week, as I'm unable to annotate all the images in the West Gallery album (as yet). 

I've tried to include all the various prizewinners - which you can read more about in this Mall Galleries post about Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2023 | Award Winners

This review is late in being published because I'm currently in the process of personal priorities related to dealing with matters related to my late Mother's Estate.

Look and Content

I've looked back at past ROI Exhibitions before making the comments below. As always it was well hung. 

Size of paintings

To me, it seems as if the exhibition lacks the number of large feature paintings - which draw attention and anchor a wall - as it normally has. 

I think the current economic context may have influenced artists to submit smaller work in the hope that it sells.

In doing so, they would be following the very well trodden path that I saw in very many exhibitions post between 2008 and 2010 during the banking crisis. 

Once you know that larger more expensive paintings are simply not selling, there's a considerable incentive to reduce your expenses in terms of shipping and framing and submit the size of works which might suit buyers pocketbooks better.

EXCEPT this then means the exhibition loses impact.

If I may be so bold as to suggest, I'd like to see all member artists sending in at least one large painting and then the rest can be any size they like. Large paintings are there to capture attention and make the viewer appreciate the expertise involved. They also help create a positive impresssion with visitors - so long as the paintings are good.

Colour

The paintings also lack colour to some extent. There's a lot of dark / grey / muted / neutral paintings. Looked at one their own - by one artist - this is not an issue. Looked at in a large exhibition, it begins to be noticeable. However I did feel the North Gallery was rather muted this year.

ROI Annual Exhibition 2023 - North Gallery

Take as another example the end wall in the West Gallery - devoted to the theme of Urban Life. 

Quite a subdued neutral wall - only the vegetation stands out!

I came away on the Friday feeling a little wintery and underwhelmed. Which is not to say that there's not a lot of excellent paintings in this exhibition.  

The Paintings which jumped out at me

Given the above comments I've decided to focus on some of the paintings which jumped out at me - in a nice way!

I typically walk around an exhibition about three times. 

• first time round, I'm just looking at the art and not at the labels (who painted it etc.) or whether it's won a prize - just looking to get a general impression and see what jumps out at me
• second time round, I'm looking to see if the things which appealed the first time still appeal - and this time I look at the labels and pay particular attention to who painted them
• third time I'm collecting data on who has sold - and for how much!

So here's my top 10 - in no particular order

That said, I thought this was by far the best painting in the show. I'm not normally a fan of hyperrealistic artwork but there's such a lot to admire in this one. I was really surprised to see that it had not won a prize - particularly given the emerging status of the artist.

Review: Semi Finals of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023

This is about what happened at the Semi Finals of the Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 at the Battersea Arts centre - which took place last April and was broadcast on Sky Arts on the 29th November. It covers

• The Semi Finalists - covered in Which PAOTY Semi Finalists will be in the PAOTY 2023 Final? - in which I reviewed all the artists and their two paintings to date.
• The Heat Paintings - also covered in the above post
• The Wild Card - an eighth painter
• The Sitter setup and setting
• Themes - my commentary
• Decision-making 
• The Finalists

All the artists in a semi circle around Emma Bunton

Plus it includes my commentary on what happened in the Semi Final. Just to note that 

• I never comment on those who do appalling paintings in the heat - but only reference themes which emerged during the programme.
• HOWEVER as we get to the final stages of a very public art competition for a big money prize, I tend to become a tad more explicit in my commentary on how artists did - albeit I lean towards describing what happened as opposed to naming the artist.  
• Bottom line the feedback becomes more direct the closer you get to the prize.

You can also read Gail Read's blog post PAOTY Semi Final - My internal monologue! which is very interesting.

The Semi Finalists

The Semi-Finalists comprised the seven heat winners and one wild card artist. They also included six women and two men!

Four semi-finalists - Wendy, Davide, Ed and Gail

Four more semi-finalists - Anna, Yvadney, Lorena and Sara

The Heat Winners

I listed and profiled all the heat winners in my previous post Portrait Artist of the Year - The Semi-Finalists - with my view of how well they would do. 

They are - in Episode order:

• Episode 1 - Anna-Louise Loy
• Episode 2 - Gail Reid (Instagram | YouTube | X)
• Episode 3 - Lorena Levi (Instagram)
• Episode 4 - Davide di Taranto (Instagram)
• Episode 5 - Sara Reeve (Instagram)
• Episode 6 - Wendy Barratt (Instagram)
• Episode 7 - Ed Lawrenson (Instagram) 
• Plus a wildcard!

The Artists: 
back row: Anna, Gail, Davide and Ed
front row: Wendy, Sara Lorena and Yvadney

This is the image from last post which reviewed all self portraits and heat paintings by the artists who won the heats and were participating in the Semi Finals.

PAOTY 2023: The self portrait and heat paintings by the seven Heat Winners

The Wild Card

The Judges chose to bring back a wild card artist. They've done this before and it's often somebody who impressed in the heats, got shortlisted byt was up against a very good heat winner.

Kathleen Soriano explained their choice as being the artist who "stayed with them" and that she represented somebody who was doing something with her paint which nobody else was. They do like to have "range"

Self portrait and heat painting by Yvadney Davis

The wild card artist was Yvadney Davis (Instagram) - who painted in Heat 3.

Born in the early 80s, she lives in South London. She pursued a career in fashion after studying at Central Saint Martins. She returned to her love of painting during the pandemic and recently has developed her art from a lockdown hobby to an award winning practice. She celebrates Caribbean heritage and the Windrush generation and uses old wallpaper for her support. She created her self portrait submission with a broken wrist.

Sitter and Setting

Sitter

The sitter was 47 year old Emma Bunton, an English singer, songwriter, actress, and media personality- better known to many of us who were around in the 90s as Baby Spice of the Spice Girls - the best selling girl group of all time.

She's now very much an entrepreneur in her own right and somebody who works with children's charities.

Emma Bunton with her "Baby Spice Buffalo Boots"

As a sitter, she is that well known "trap" for all portrait artists - the beautiful woman with flawless skin and great hair!

Tai predicted she would cause them all problems and she certainly did for more than half the painters!

Her "special object" was her very old Buffalo Boots which she was well known for wearing as a Spice Girl. Apparently they were responsible for a number of broken bones!

Her suit was also pretty challenging as was the amount of red an violet in the background.

Setting

The place where the filming took place is the large hall at Battersea Arts Centre i.e. the same as for the Heats minus the pie segments set. (I'm intrigued to see next week as to whether, post pandemic, they've got back into the National Portrait Gallery for the Final)

Instead for the semi finals, they 

• dress up the back of the room with long red velvet curtains and purple lightboxes 
• provide a large circular red carpet and 
• all the easels in a semi-circle around the sitter. 

Plus all the heat paintings go on the back wall - and bear in mind at this stage that 

• the artists have only just met one another and 
• have not seen their self portraits or their heat paintings. 

So this is the point - as they walk in - when they get to see some of what the competition can do AND get overwhelmed by the size of the set and the distance from their easel to the sitter! It's jaw dropping even if you are just a spectator walking in.

The view of the dais and chair from the easels

Battersea Arts Centre: the Heat Paintings and the set-up for the Semi Finals

Note that artists don't get to choose where they go. All their kit and particular requirements are set out in advance.

This is certainly the episode which is most likely to cause issues for the artists in terms of:

• they're one of eight artists painting the same sitter in a large semi circle around the sitter - and not one of three painting a sitter in a segment
• they are MUCH further away from the sitter than in the heat - and very much further than any normal portrait painter would be from a sitter in real life. Hence one of the reasons why I'd never ever be critical of anybody who references a photo or digital image during this episode.
• there's a lot of scope for you to lose sight of the sitter - as the cameras and the team filming the episode tend to get in the way 
• all the artists can see all the other artists' heat portrait paintings on the back wall of the hall as they come in. It's very easy to see people who are better than you (you think!).

Themes

Size and format

I was surprised at how few artists chose to "go up a gear" either in terms of size or scope of the painting.

Oddly, rather than trying to paint more of the sitter, most of the painters opted to paint a head and shoulders only.

The portrait paintings produced can be categorised as follows:

• FORMAT: 
• 5 x portrait, 
• 2 x landscape, 
• 1 x square
• SIZE: - in general size increased
• 1 x large
• 3 x large medium
• 2 x medium
• 2 x small
• SCOPE:
• Full size or most of body (including hand) x 1
• upper torso including hand(s) x 0
• upper torso (no hands) x 1
• head, shoulder and hand(s) x 0
• head and shoulders (no hands) x 5
• head x 1

The one artist who courageously tackled the whole figure (and well done for trying) produced a very good composition - BUT then spent 

• much too little time on drawing in the figure and face accurately and 
• far too much time and space and paint application on the background - which is NOT the focus on the portrait!

It's worth noting that the focus of most of your time and effort ALWAYS needs to be on the person and NEVER the background. You can edit as much as you like when it comes to the background - including changing its colour.

The need to see progression

A number of the artists recognised that "more of the same" won't deliver a finals place.  Each artist needed to demonstrate that they can do better than they did in the heat.

However, not only did most fail to progress, some actually went backwards.

"Today has got to be more than a likeness"

So said Kathleen Soriano at the beginning of the episode.

She might have added, the minimum threshold for getting selected for the final SHOULD be that you have achieved a minimum of a likeness

Several of them have really struggled to get the likeness right Stephen Mangan

What was absolutely amazing was how many artists simply failed to get a likeness - as in COMPLETELY FAILED. I counted five of the seven portraits did not achieve a likeness. By which I mean,  if they had been hung in a gallery and people asked to suggest who the sitter is, I would argue very few would have come up with the right name.

They really needed to raise their game and some of them did and some of them didn't 

Nerves and apprehension - and the impact on the head

I felt there were some artists who delivered their own particular response to "rabbit in the headlights".

I wondered if they thought it was going to just be another version of the heats - with different people. If they did, thwy were were wrong. ALL but one were heat winners and the evidence of what they could do in four hours was on the back wall!

The ones who failed to deliver what they are capable of included:

• artists who could not get going properly or quickly
• artists who lacked ambition relative to the context
• artists who had ambition but got distracted by aspects which really did not matter
• artists who seemed to be painting somebody else.

The most obvious way to illustrate this was how many of them completely failed to record the very distinctive structure of Emma Bunton's head and face. She has a very distinctive jawline and very pronounced cheek bones plus wonderful skin and baby blue eyes.

All of this despite the fact, most had photographic images to work from as well as working from like. Realistically at the distance from the sitter that they are required to work, the features and detail of the face and hair come from a photograph.

One artist in particular - who was very slow to get started - just totally failed to deliver the basics of the structure of any head. The structure of the eye on the far side of the artist was just so wrong it made me and Kathleen wince!

The rest of the mistakes are unforgiveable at this level Kathleen Soriano

Scaling up - go big or go home

I felt Sara had a very good chance of being in the Final. However she went for "a very big head" (and we're no longer in "the big head" era) and a VERY tight crop.

Working on a larger support was a good idea. Scaling up the head was IMO less of a good idea. I think if she'd done what she accomplished but did it with shoulders and hands and a special object she would have been a shoe-in.

As Kate observed, her colouration and handling of colour is very good - but it needed more space to breathe. 

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Decision Making

The Sitters' Choice

Emma Bunton was very kind and found something nice - or neutral - to say about everybody's painting.

However I knew she was going to choose Wendy's painting - which she did. It was inevitable. She was the only person to deliver Emma's very distinctive facial structure and colouration. I'm very sure that portrait will be now hanging in her home!

Wendy Barrett with her semi-final portrait of Emma Bunton (4 hours)

Selection for the Final

The three artists selected for the Final are:

• Wendy Barratt
• Davide di Tarantino
• Lorena Levi

You can see their portraits below.

Emma Bunton by Wendy Barrett

I had predicted Wendy would be selected. Once she started painting, I knew for definite that Wendy was going to get selected. She 

• made LOTS of very thoughtful and sensible choices 
• did not mess up her painting - and 
• also achieved by far the best likeness from an angle that some artists find very challenging.

I particularly liked the way she portrayed the hair through colour and tonal shapes.

A nice honest bit of painting Tai-shan Shierenberg

Emma Bunton by Davide di Taranto 
(a very small painting)

The choice of Davide surprised me. I think he maybe fell into the Judge's (very odd) criteria of "we need something different". So would somebody like to explain to me WHY we need something different?

It was very clear that Kathleen lamented the fact he didn't produce another painting like his self portrait - and I rather think he's going forward in the hope that he will in the Final.

What he did do - as did the next painter - was INCLUDE THE SPECIAL OBJECT OF THE SITTER. (They were two of only three who did). I've included that in caps as I think those going forward in future series need to think a bit more carefully about how best to include "the special object".

Emma Buntion by Lorena Levi

Lorena Levi also surprised me as a choice. Overall the painting was interesting and good - so long as you didn't know that Emma Bunton was the model as the distortions she employed - which seem to be habitual - certainly did Emma absolutely no favours. There is no likeness due to the elongation when Emma's face is characterised by horizontals (eg jawline and cheekbones) rather than verticals.

However what Lorena did do is focus entirely on other aspects that mattered and she included

• head and upper torso
• pattern on the suit
• the buffalo boots in outline
• suggested the outlines of the lightboxes and the colouration behind - in a very simple and undistracting way
• kept the focus on the head and face - although for me there was far too little space between the top of the head and the edge of the support.

So - my conclusion from this semi-final is that I'm going to be VERY, VERY surprised if Wendy does not win this series next Wednesday.

I think she's an excellent draughtsman when it comes to drawing in - she gets size, shapes, volumes and tonal patterns absolutely spot on - and yet at the same time she paints well and produces an interesting painting of itself.

Do you want to paint in a heat next year?

This is my post about the Call for Entries: Series 11 of Portrait Artist of the Year (next year). Essential reading for all those who want to do well - it's got links to all my past reviews and all the themes and tips identified in the last five years.

Plus if you want to find out more.....

• Want to watch the Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 being filmed? - the dates relate to last year but the process should be the same
• How artists are selected for PAOTY or LAOTY - a blog post I wrote last year. The process as explained by Stuart Prebble, the Chairman of Storyvault Films, the independent television company who make the series for Sky Arts
• What do you do if you don't respond to the PAOTY call in 48 hours? for those who don't make a particular note of the dates they will contact you.

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year - REFERENCE

Previous Finals

Here are my posts about previous finals

• Morag Caister wins Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9 2022)
• Calum Stevenson wins Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 8 Autumn 2021)
• Curtis Holder wins Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 7 Autumn 2020)
• (I'm still trying to work out what happened to the pandemic post about the Final in Spring 2020 when Christobel Blackburn won)
• Duncan Shoosmith is Portrait Artist of the Year 2019
• Review: The Final of Portrait Artist of the Year 2018
• Gareth Reid is Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2017

Reviews of PAOTY Series 10

Dates after the listed reviews below relate to the date of the first broadcast

This year's heats are:

• Review: Episode 1 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 11 October 2023
• Review: Episode 2 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 18 October 2023
• Review: Episode 3 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 25 October 2023
• Review: Episode 4 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 1 November 2023
• Review: Heat 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 8 November 2023
• Review: Heat 6 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 15 November 2023
• Review: Episode 7 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 22 November 2023

Very oddly, the link to the artists and videos in the Heats does NOT have an episode for the videos of the paintings made in the Semi Final.

Which PAOTY Semi Finalists will be in the PAOTY 2023 Final?

Tonight is the semi-finals of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023.

Can you predict who will get the three places in the Final - based on the self portrait submission and their heat painting?

PAOTY 2023: The self portrait and heat paintings by the seven Heat Winners

Check them out below. I've listed all the Heat Winners and included the images of the self portrait and heat painting below.

My prediction is the finalists will be

• Gail Reid
• Sara Reeeve; and 
• Wendy Barratt

I say that mainly on the basis that:

• they are all experienced portrait painters
• they all produced very good heat portraits (judged against the seven as a whole)
• they all seem to have the sort of temperament which means they mobilise quickly and complete within the time limit.

What's your prediction? (Answers please on my Making A Mark Facebook Page before 8pm!)

Heat 1 - Anna-Louise Loy

Anna-Louise Loy is a music student from Liverpool. Graduated this year from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with an Honours Degree in Music (as a a Tenor/Bass Trombonist). Her self portrait is part of a series of annual self portraits.

See Review: Episode 1 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 11 October 2023

Heat 2 - Gail Reid (Instagram | YouTube | X)

Gail Reid is a Bristol based full time artist. She writes a blog and share livestream and edited video demonstrations on YouTube and Instagram. On her YouTube channel she has a large collection of demos and other material. READ my blog post about her blog post about Preparing for Portrait Artist of the Year - Gail Reid shares her experience and tips. I think she might also be limbering up for LAOTY by drawing and painting her way around France on her family holiday this year

See Review: Episode 2 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 18 October 2023

Heat 3 - Lorena Levi (Instagram)

Lorena Levi graduated Edinburgh University with an MA in Fine art 2021 where she won awarded the Astaire Prize at the end of her course. She was the overall winner of the 2022 Jackson’s Painting Prize. If the Judges knew those credentials, they'd be taking her seriously from the off... Her self portrait submission is below.

See Review: Episode 3 Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 29 October 2023

Heat 4 - Davide di Taranto (Instagram) 

Davide di Taranto is a miniature portraitist and fresco restorer born in Italy, but has lived in the UK since 2010 and currently lives in Southampton. After graduating at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Academy of Fine Art) in Florence, he worked on restorations all over the world. His self-portrait can be seen up close - and was exhibited in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2018

See Review: Episode 4 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 8 November 2023

Heat 5 - Sara Reeve (Instagram)

Sara Reeve is a Brighton-based painter who predominantly focuses on portraiture and also works as a wedding officiant. She is also a Tutor at Draw Brighton as a life drawing session leader and runs evening classes in Painting Portraits in Oils. She is also a proud @artcanorg member. Previously she worked for 12 years as a wedding photographer - so I'm guessing she knows a few things about how to make people look good.

See Review: Heat 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 15 November 2023

 

Heat 6 - Wendy Barratt (Instagram)

Wendy Barratt is a graphic designer and artist who lives in Worthing. She specialises in portraiture and the human figure and teaches art in her spare time.

See Review: Heat 6 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10) 22 November 2023
 

Heat 7 - Ed Lawrenson (Instagram) 

Ed Lawrenson is a professional full time artist based in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Studied at Winchester school of Art and the École Nationale Superiere des Beaux Arts in Paris. Currently works as a Studio Manager for a contemporary artist. (I'm pretty sure that's Damien Hirst who has one of his Science (UK) Limited Studios in Stroud). He is also a painter working primarily in figurative oil painting, with an interest in the renaissance and Impressionism. His self portrait was intended to poke fun at how seriously he takes himself. He is is currently working on a large body of mythological painting; fusing elements from the Bible with contemporary science fiction and historical painting motifs.

see Review: Episode 7 of Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 10)