Episode 5 of Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (Series 9)

This is a review of Episode 5 of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2022 (series 9)

The artists are lined to to hear the outcome of the Judges deliberations  and which three are selected for the shortlist.

I’m still very frustrated by the NOW TV app which refuses to behave in terms of rewatching sections of the episode i.e. refuses to stop or advance to a place before or after its current place.

The Artists

The artists of Episode 5

The artists for Episode 5 are as follows. I provide some detail which
got left out of some of the bios on television. Links to websites are embedded
in names.

• Fawzi Ebrahim (Instagram) – a retired engineer who studied fine art in Baghdad before migrating to
  live in Halifax
• Sara Gregory (Instagram) – graduated from Stourbridge College of Art and then spent 25
  years as an art teacher, teaching students from 7 – 18. After a ‘significant
  birthday’ she quit her teaching job to focus more on her
  paintings. She’s now Portrait and Figurative Artist working in her
  studio in Whetstone.
• Binny Mathews (Instagram) – a professional artist who trained at Bournemouth College of Art and at
  Farnham School of Art (1978-80) and is currently based in Chelsea
  Studios, London. She’s an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Portrait
  Painters. Her work has been exhibited in exhibitions at various prominent
  art galleries including the Summer Exhibition at the The Royal Academy of
  Arts. She is qualified to teach and provided one on one tuition.

• Harriet Merry
  (Instagram) – Studied art to A Level and worked for many years as a picture editor,
  selecting and commissioning photography for national newspapers and
  magazines before becoming a mum. Got back to art in 2019 and now works in
  ink producing very effective collage drawings.
• Samantha Messias
  (Instagram)  – her drawings are created using pencil and charcoal. She is
  self-taught in relation to hyperrealism and has a studio in Chester. 
• Rosie Philips (Facebook
  | Instagram |
  Twitter) –
  a 21 year old self taught painter. She is a former barista who now works part-time for female art co-operative the Jade Tree in Norwich and exhibits in
  Norfolk – below is her self portrait. Looks very promising to me!

• Nina Ruminska (Instagram) – Born in 1989 Toruń, Poland. Currently based in Dublin, Ireland.
  Likes to paint people from life during a time of quiet sitting and
  reflection.
• William Savage (Instagram) -Studied at Lavender Hill Studios (2011-13). Exhibited in RBSA Portrait Prize shows 2014, 2016.
• Robert Ware – studied at Glasgow School of Art (BA Fine Art Painting and Printmaking 2017) and The Heatherley School of Fine Art (Portrait Painting Diploma 2021). Has been selected and exhibited in juried exhibitions (Royal Society of Portrait Painters; Royal Institute of Oil Painters; Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize; Wales Contemporary/Cymru Gyfoes International Art Competition )

The Sitters

The sitters for this episode were:

Size and Content of Self Portrait Submissions

Judges looking at the Self Portrait Wall

Every week I look at how the self portraits can be analysed in terms of
format, size and content.

FORMAT

• Portrait x 6
• Landscape x 1
• Square x 2

SIZE

I was surprised that 5 of the 9 were small or tiny paintings

• Large x 1
• Large/Medium x 2
• Medium x 1
• Small x 3
• Tiny x 2

SCOPE

I call this a success for my perennial bleating to make sure you paint more than just a head in your self portrait and in particular, to try and include as much as possible if possible and at least one hand otherwise!!

• full size or most of body (including hand) x 2
• upper torso + hand(s) x 4
• upper torso (no hands) x 0
• head and shoulders x 2
• head x 1

Themes

• some had timetables for what needed to be done by when – which they failed to achieve
• some went small – and filled the 
• some thought a lot about how they worked – see next theme
• one went very big – and completed the painting.

Guess who won the heat?

Is painting big a good or bad idea?

Here’s some pros and cons.

Pros

• Worth doing if you know how to complete a background fast
• Potential to create a bigger better impression
• Indicates experience – if done well
• Looks like somebody who can handle a proper commission for an organisation

Cons

• only having a half finished painting at the end of the 4 hours – which looks unfinished i.e. this is not deliberate
• Not adjusting your composition for the size and format of your support

The need to speed up

A number of the artists appeared to be experiencing creating artwork within a time constraint for the first time! Which surprised me because

• I’d have thought it was obvious that practising producing a decent portrait within the timescale (with deductions from the four hours for interruptions etc) would provide you with an advantage in the heat. i.e. the time limit would not phase you.
• I’ve been bleating about the need to know what you can achieve within four hours – and less – in virtually every review of every heat in the last three series

The Judges commented that the day went fast and well for some – and slowly and not so well for others.

Being organised

Fawzi thought long and hard while practising about whether he was time-efficient i.e. whether his materials were organised sensibly and whether there was anything he could do to cut down on time-wasting. He had put a lot of thought into the layout of all his art materials in terms of what he could move. 

Whether you are agree or not with what he did – which presumably worked for him (at the time)  – it’s not a bad idea to check out your time wasting habits which leave you speeding and/or making mistakes towards the end.

The one thing to be wary of is eliminating all the time required for reflection….

The important need to paint shapes in more ways than one

I spotted two things in this heat

• artists who painted colours of objects – in terms of ‘known shape’ without any reference to tone
• artists who painted heads without any realistic reference to the shape of the body it was attached to

Being able to accurately paint shapes is really important – BUT 

• the big important shapes are the tones NOT the colours – given this is what generates form and depth
• large heads on small shoulders / bodies diminish the sitter and look a tad cartoon like.

How to paint clothing

If your sitter is wearing clothes with an interesting pattern ignore it if you want to complete the painting in four hours. 

• There is no requirement to paint pattern in a garment. 
• You should be putting your focus entirely on painting the person and not the clothing
• However, if the structure of the clothing tells you something about the sitter, use it!

The Judging

Sitters Choices

In terms of who chose what, it was completely different from the shortlist

• Alexis chose Harriet Merry’s very stylized collage of him – which I was not surprised about
• Stella chose Rob’s portrait of the two heads – hers and the head of the puppet. It made me think of her comment about the DG of MI5 being seen as “the puppet master’ so I wonder if this was an ironical choice.
• Big Zuu choce Fawzi’s ‘full on / upfront’ portrait

Critique by the Judges

The Judges liked

• excellent composition
• great likeness
• tackling very large paintings – and finishing them
• being very organised
• getting on with the painting
• artists who delayed the face to near the end – and then achieved real character with a few judiciously placed marks

The Judges were less impressed by artists who

• artists who progressed very, very slowly

“everybody needs to work faster!”

• getting the shapes and form of the body wrong

The Shortlist

Lined up with their self portraits to hear which three move forward

I have to say I didn’t find it easy to identify the shortlist – and yet when the shortlist was announced I could entirely see why the Judges chose as they did.

It also makes more sense when you saw the heat painting next to the previous submission.

The Shortlist was

• Nina Ruminska
• Binnie Mathews
• Rosie Phillips

The Shortlist: Self Portraits and Heat Paintings (L to R) Rosie Philips; Binny Mathews and Nina Ruminska

The Judges commented that:

• Rosie had a gift of a sitter and made a good decision in terms of her choice of how to portray him. I think her submission also carried her a long way to the shortlist. For me it was more a case of she’d have to have messed up big time not to get shortlisted after her fascinating fully body self-portrait

• Binny made lots of very good decisions about the design and composition of the portrait early on and had a very well constructed space and didn’t fuss over anything but rather just got on and painted

• Nina produced a very poetic portrait of Alexis and a very interesting painting which came together at the end with a few strokes. Kathleen loved it

Episode 5 Winner

Shortlisted artists: (L to R) Rosie Philips; Binnie Mathews and Nina Ruminska

The winner was Binny Mathews. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her in the Final.

The Judges said that 

• she was clearly a very accomplished painter 
• She had set herself an enormous challenge AND had managed to complete a massive portrait within 4 hours. 
• she and created a beautiful and effortless narrative. 

Incidentally, she was also the ONLY artist who used a landscape format for both self portrait submission and her heat painting. Landscape gets you noticed…..

Binny Mathews with her portrait of Dame Stella Rimington

Episode 6

The sitters next week will be

• Jim Carter, 
• Benjamin Zephaniah, 
• Ellie Simmonds

Sky Arts Artist of the Year – REFERENCE

If you want to look back at reviews of previous series you can find links to
them in