Whitewall Galleries is delighted to be the official gallery partner of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2019. We chose to enter into this partnership because, like the team at Sky Arts, we believe there is an amazing breadth of artistic talent in this country just waiting to be discovered. We pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of contemporary fine art, and one of our key aspirations is to source the very best new talent for our collectors, investors and galleries.

The competition is now over and a winner has been chosen, but this fascinating exhibition shows a selection of work from all eight semi-finalists, and represents the diversity, creativity, innovation and technical excellence of these exciting new voices. Catherine MacDiarmid

Catherine was born in Kendal in 1972 and gained a First Class Visual Arts Degree from De Montfort University in 1994. Since then she has lived in her hometown and now works from her garden studio.

Catherine has completed a variety of portrait commissions and has work in private collections across the UK as well as in Turkey, America and France. Her work featured in the BP Portrait Award in 2001 and 2002 and is included in the NPG’s first 500 Portraits publication. She has won several awards over the years for her work, with her most recent being the Pegasus Art Prize in Artists and Illustrators Artist of the Year 2017, and second prize in Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) Prize Exhibition in 2016.

Catherine was elected a member of The Lakes Artists Society in 2014 and regularly shows in their annual exhibition held in Grasmere every summer. (HEAT) SITTER: GEORGINA CAMPBELL Original Painting on Box Canvas, 16” x 16”, Not For Sale (SEMI-FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 16”, Price: £3,600 (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Box Canvas, 22” x 22”, Price: £4,400 (HEAT) SITTER: MATTHEW GOODE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 16” x 20”, Not For Sale Geoffrey Harrison

Geoffrey’s portrait style is realist yet painterly; he values draftsmanship and explores details with a close eye and combines this with an expressive approach and gestural marks. Working in a range of media, he begins a portrait with extensive studying and drawing before any painting sitting.

Geoffrey has exhibited across the UK as well as internationally and was selected for the 2018 Discerning Eye exhibition. He was a finalist in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Bulldog Bursary and was long-listed for the BP Portrait Exhibition the same year. He has been artist in residence at the Royal Veterinary College and the Pathology Museum at St Bart’s Hospital.

As well as his own art practice, he teaches observational drawing at St. George’s Medical School (University of London) as well as private classes. He also runs the People’s Portrait Project, a fundraising organisation of artists drawing portraits for donations to charity.

Geoffrey was born in Manchester. He studied Fine Art at the Hull School of Art and after living in Japan for 6 years, now lives and works in Central London. (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Board, 18” x 24”, Price: £3,000

Emil Nikolla

Emil Nikolla was born in Berat, Albania in 1971. Emil studied art at Athens Fine Arts University in Greece and now lives and works in London.

Emil’s interest in portraiture became evident from the beginning of his career. His technique and repertoire broadened in Greece as a young painter when he started to paint landscapes ‘en plain air’ whilst also developing his human figure paintings with the guidance of his tutor.

Today his spontaneous use of colour is the most personal feature of his work. In his portraits Emil sets up an interesting dialogue with his model, whilst his skilled hand is lead by a combination of intuition and impulse transforming the white canvas into a piece with creative depth. Surprisingly, all of this happens as he chats naturally to the sitter, capturing their essential nature whilst focusing on their gaze. (HEAT) SITTER: ADRIAN LESTER Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 16” x 20”, For Sale (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 30”, Price: £2,000 SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Box Canvas, 16” x 20”, Price: £1,500 (FINAL) SITTER: LAURA LINNEY Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 20”, Price: £350 Sara Lavelle

Drawing upon a deep fascination with both human psychology and philosophy, Sara’s work has a predominant focus on portrait painting and figuration. She works mainly in oils, moving freely between commissioned pieces and self- initiated projects.

Sara approaches painting with delicacy and care, hoping to capture the fundamental essence of a person using soft colours and a gentle application of paint. She hopes to achieve a stillness in her pieces that creates space for intimacy and contemplation between the viewer and the painted figure.

Sara studied Illustration at The University of Brighton where she graduated with a First Class Degree. She also studied painting at Minneapolis College of Art and De-sign, Minnesota, for a semester in 2016 as part of her Bachelor’s degree.

She is based in a studio in London, and is currently working towards a range of shows this year, joint and solo, including the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition held in Mall Galleries, London. (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 30” x 40”, Price: £9,000

(HEAT) SITTER: JAMES PUREFOY Original Painting on Box Canvas, 16” x 20”, Price: £350 (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 12” x 16”, Price: £350 (HEAT) SITTER: DAVID GANDY Original Drawing on Paper, 20” x 30”, Not For Sale Fatima Pantoja

Fatima works in a variety of media including oils, acrylics and clay. She recently rediscovered her love for pastels, which she used for her submission and then throughout the competition. Her work has been heavily influenced by the colours of the Fauvists and the light of the Impressionists, particularly Sorolla and Cezanne.

Fatima loves painting from life and interacting with the model, which renders her portraits both expressive and intimate. She interprets portraiture as a human landscape - considering the planes and colours in front of her in an almost abstract way that allows her to see not just the outside but the inside too: “I believe a portrait goes beyond the likeness; each person has a particular colour, a stroke, a feeling that is not in plain view which needs to come through.”

Born in Spain where she studied Fine Arts, Fatima now resides in Hampshire where she works as a Freelance Artist, Art Educator and co-curator in a local Art Gallery. (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Drawing on Paper, 23” x 33”, Price: £2,900 (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Drawing on Mounted Paper, 15” x 22”, Price: £2,500 Annabella Lee

Annie’s thought-provoking work observes and depicts aspects of people or life that sometimes may be overlooked. She challenges the viewer’s perception and expectation of their interactions with art in order to raise questions about, and deepen our experience of, the world we live in.

Annie was born in London in 1999. As an art student, currently studying at Central Saint Martins, her work is constantly developing and changing. At the moment she is exploring multiple ideas, such as the relationship between artwork and viewer, and the spatial and contextual properties of galleries.

Painting almost exclusively in oils, Annie loves experimenting with the medium, for example, using rags and thinned oil paint to produce beautiful marks. She likes to investigate each subject, and depict elements of personality or attitudes that others may not have remarked, before portraying it through multiple layers of interpretation. (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Paper 24” x 33”, Price: £1,500 (HEAT) SITTER: GINA MCKEE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 30”, Not For Sale (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas 20” x 30”, Price: £1,500 (COMMISSION) SITTER: JAZZIE B Original Painting on Box Canvas, 40” x 30”, Not For Sale Tom Mead

The fractured and overlapping nature of Tom’s work conveys an impression of movement. Working with acrylic, he paints fast and builds layer upon layer, which adds to the sense of life and motion. Tom hopes to embrace the emotions of his subjects within his work by focussing on themes such as identity and existentialism.

Film and photography are huge influences for Tom; he plans each scene, composes the shot, studies and re-creates the lighting, then predicts what would happen over a length of time in order to capture a sense of movement.

Tom was born in Essex in 1997 and is coming to the end of his final year studying Fine Art: Painting at UAL, Wimbledon. He divides his time between studying, taking commissions and working part-time as a graphic designer. (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Box Canvas, 24” x 30”, Price: £3,500 (FINAL) SITTER: LAURA LINNEY Original Painting Canvas on Board, 20” x 16”, Price: £2,500

(HEAT) SITTER: DANIEL LISMORE Original Painting Canvas on Board, 16” x 12”, Not For Sale Duncan Shoosmith

Duncan was born in Berkshire in 1968. He graduated with a BA in Graphic Design but found it unfulfilling as a career. In 1993 he visited the Lucian Freud show at The Whitechapel Art Gallery and was inspired to start painting. He has spent years applying himself, creating self-portraits to begin with, then painting friends and family.

Executed in oil on canvas, Duncan’s portraits have a clarity strength and honesty derived partially from his distinctive and defined brushwork. His work has been exhibited twice at the BP Portrait Award, London and he sells from private commissions. He now divides his time between painting and sharing the childcare of his three children.

“Every minute that we are alive influences our art…I paint how I do because of the life that I have had.” (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Box Board 12” x 18”, Price: £1,500 (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 24”, Price: £2,000 (HEAT) SITTER: JODIE COMER Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 16” x 20”, Price: £2,000 (FIRST DRAFT OF COMMISSION) SITTER: TOM JONES Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 24”, Price: £5,000

Archie Wardlaw

Archie Wardlaw is a contemporary painter specialising in portraiture, landscapes and still life. Having first studied Classics and Philosophy with Mandarin at the University of Exeter he trained for five years in the Classical Atelier method at London Fine Art Studios where he is now a senior tutor.

Painting from life is a crucial part of Archie’s quick and immediate painting process. The dialogue that comes through spending time with his subjects means his paintings are not just a snapshot in time, as they also encompass a greater understanding through intense observation that breathes life and dynamism into his work.

Archie works with oil and charcoal from his studio in Battersea, London as well as painting landscapes ‘en plein air’. (SUBMISSION) SELF-PORTRAIT Original Painting on Board, 12” x 16”, Price: £850 (HEAT) SITTER: BEVERLEY KNIGHT Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 18” x 24”, Not For Sale (SEMI FINAL) SITTER: COURTNEY PINE Original Painting on Stretched Canvas, 20” x 24”, Price: £2,400 twitter.com/wwgalleries | facebook.com/whitewallgalleries | instagram.com/whitewallgalleries whitewallgalleries.com