Overview

 

2023 saw many exciting changes to Jackson’s Painting Prize including an inaugural exhibition of shortlisted artworks at Bankside Gallery, in addition to our yearly stand at Affordable Art Fair.

Alongside the two London exhibitions, the season also saw an impressive expert judging panel including Martin Gayford and Ell Pennick, and 16 varied awards.

Exhibition Films

Jackson’s Painting Prize 2023 came to a close 
with the first ever large-scale exhibition of 
shortlisted works at Bankside Gallery, titled 
Rising Artists. 

We’re pleased to showcase a series of 
interviews with three Jackson's Painting 
Prize 2023 shortlisted artists, filmed 
by the Jackson's Team at Bankside Gallery, 
discussing their practice and experience of 
taking part in the competition with Evie Hatch. 

You’ll also hear from our 2023 Competition 
Coordinator, Josephine Zentner, discussing 
the competition, the inaugural exhibition, 
and looking ahead to next year.

Watch now

Amateur Award

Kuangyi Liu, Interior No.5

Oil on canvas, 54 x 46 cm

“This painting records the corner of home, when life went on, but all felt still and unusual in 2021.”

Kuangyi Liu is a self-taught artist based in Cambridge. She enjoys painting from observation, particularly figurative and portrait in oil.

@kliuart

People’s Choice Award

Lucy Gable, Menopausal Me

Oil on panel, 40 x 40 cm

“I’m particularly drawn to painting portraits in oil, often female, and I try to capture the over-riding emotion of a particular singular moment. I often find that those emotions are obscure but intense, and include exhaustion, fury, exasperation and joy.”

@lucygableart

Student Award

Ginny Elston, The Burden of Being

Acrylic on paper, 120 x 168 cm

“‘The Burden of Being’ is an uncomfortable confrontation of our ceaseless habits of consuming and discarding materials that will long outlive us on the planet. We spend our lives accumulating ‘stuff’, and I wanted to make a painting that speaks of the overwhelming and overbearing nature of this stuff.”

@ginnyelston

Portrait Award Winner

Chris Longridge, Venus and Cupid

Oil on panel, 72 x 60 cm

Chris Longridge is an artist based in Kent. He works primarily in oils and explores the limitations and opportunities afforded by paint in a post-digital environment, particularly regarding portraiture and the figure. Venus and Cupid is a domestic portrait that references mythology and baroque painting while employing a discontinuous composition that challenges straightforward interpretation.

@clongridge

Landscape Award Winner

David Stewart, Tower Shadow

Oil on canvas, 137 x 182 cm

“My landscape paintings address the tension between suburban and natural spaces in a contemporary context. As a painter originally from the West Coast of Canada, I am interrogating the legacy of Canadian landscape painters from a critical perspective that is conscious of my own European settler heritage.”

@davidstewartart

Animal Award Winner

Rosie Phillips, Babs

Oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cm

“A miraculous moment of calm in my collie pup, following a very, very long walk.”

Rosie Phillips is a 21 year old self taught painter based in Norfolk. She won the Sworders’ Art Prize for Emerging Artists, The Sir John Hurt Art Prize (Highly Commended) and the John Dalton: Gently Does It Art Prize. Last November Rosie took part in Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year, where her painting was shortlisted by the judges.

@rosiephillipsart

Non-Representational Award

Petra Schott, And Then She Decided To Take A Bath

Oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm

Petra Schott is a German abstract painter. She weaves personal and collective memories from her daily life into shapes, marks and lines, creating an abstract language of painting that oscillates between lyrical abstraction and figurative references.

This painting is an homage to the many works of Pierre Bonnard painting his wife taking a bath. He captures intimacy and sensuality, which interest Petra in her paintings, too.

@petra.schott.art

Still Life Award

Li Ning, A Room of One’s Own

Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

Li’s works represent subjects under allegorical and fantastic imagination. His sources of inspiration come from both mythical forms and ordinary objects.

Deeply influenced by Renaissance painters such as Titian and Botticelli, Li realized figurative paintings contain infinite possibilities. By embracing Renaissance painters, he incorporates their style to depict his subjects in a contemporary art construct.

 

Scenes of Everyday Life Award

Robbie Bushe, Night Visitor

Oil on panel, 40 x 50 cm

Night Visitor is a part of an ongoing project titled ‘Ghosts in the Garden’, in which Robbie has made an observational drawing from his home as a participant in ‘100 Day Project Scotland’. These 100 drawings have formed the starting point of a series of narrative paintings and animations.

@robbiebushe

Mind’s Eye Award

Iain Andrews, Double Portion

Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 91 cm

Iain’s paintings begin as a dialogue, both with a particular Folk Tale and also with an image from art history – often a painting by an Old Master that may then be used as a starting point from which to playfully but reverently deviate.

@iainandrewsart

Botanical Award

Julia Asenbaum, Cibotium Glaucum

Watercolour on paper, 56 x 76 cm

“Nature’s intricate beauty; I could forever lose myself in it. Using watercolours I tried to capture every little detail of this otherworldly fern. The process of observing and painting felt like a journey to an alien landscape.”

Julia Asenbaum studied plant science at the University of Vienna. Her scientific work on the Pollination Biology of spurges was published in the Journal of Plant Science. After receiving her Masters degree she started a three year diploma in botanical illustration at the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh.

@julia.asenbaum

Oil Award

Anna Kurkova, Three Magi

Oil on paper,  152 x 101 cm

Three Magi are a visual interpretation of a timeless story of a call answered and joy celebrated. But this time the sky is clouded and the guiding star absent. An allegory for life’s journey, this pilgrimage is more personal, less structured, and perhaps without a set destination.

Website

Acrylic Award

David Kinsey, Untitled

Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 101 cm

“Embedded in abstract forms, there lies a heightened sensitivity and commitment to the materiality and mark making experience. This is the fuel that propels the expressionistic responses and reactions of automatism. I strive to elevate this in an abstract language with notions of aesthetics, accident, purposefulness, structures, dichotomies, the physical versus the ethereal, internal versus external.”

Dry Media Award

Kylie Sandford, Microcosm I

Pastel on paper, 63 x 51 cm

For Sandford, creating these drawings is a way of forging a close relationship with nature. By taking the time to observe and appreciate the small details of the natural world, she feels a deeper connection to the environment. In turn, she hopes that her art can inspire others to take a closer look at the world and appreciate the beauty and complexity of even the smallest things. She uses a variety of techniques, including layering, blending, and painting with water, to create these richly detailed and impressionistic images on paper.

@kyliesandford18

Watercolour Award

Catherine MacDiarmid, Personal Space: Dancer

Watercolour on paper, 35 x 35 cm

Catherine’s work is inspired by the people around her – friends and close family feature predominantly. She never seeks to flatter, but rather to unveil hidden narratives and record situations the way she sees or recalls them, representing a memory, relationship, event, or even a feeling, making each piece very personal.

@catherinemacdiarmid