Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2026 | In the Artist's Words

This work explores the application of traditional Chinese painting techniques – specifically gongbi – within the context of contemporary figurative portraiture. Gongbi is an ancient and highly refined painting method with a history of over two thousand years. Throughout different historical periods, its aesthetic character has continually evolved in response to changing cultural values and subjects of representation. In this work, the traditional gongbi technique is employed to depict a Western male nude, bringing an unexpected subject into dialogue with an established classical language. By placing a contemporary Western figure within this meticulous and restrained tradition, the work reflects an ongoing exploration of how gongbi painting may be reinterpreted within a contemporary context.

Ronald sat for me in his study, at the top of the stairs, his back to a small mullioned window overlooking the garden and illuminating his antiquated typewriter (a hand me down from friend and biographer Ian Collins) on the table which he had continued to work at for almost 40 years by this time. He told me that time was precious and you needed lots of it to yourself for writing as well as ‘just a few close and trusted friends.’ I had intended to make a portrait of Ronald soon after my visit, but other things prevailed and it got postponed indefinitely. He passed away in January 2023 aged 100. After hearing the news on the radio, I began to read his final publication ‘Next to Nature; a lifetime in the English Countryside’ (John Murray 2022) having received it as a Christmas gift. I found to my great surprise that he had recorded my visit in one of the essays - a parting gift from this extraordinary man. I unearthed the sketches from 2008 and began to work towards a painted portrait.

My work focuses on the themes of origins and belonging and it is this concern that has formed the basis of this painting. Through the act of painting I reclaim a moment lost in the instant it occurred. The sitter is my daughter Megan. Through the process of painting her portrait I wanted to commemorate this stage of her development and also a pre-Christmas visit to her Granny Maya. Within the portrait there is an echo of that which is lost and sought, it speaks at times to our sense of nostalgia and at others to our desire to be seen, recognised and valued.

My father had Parkinson's disease. My mother cared for him at home after he developed it at age 60. He refused to be cared for by anyone other than her. He was a high school history teacher. He collaborated with other social studies teachers to write and compile local history books. Students often came to visit him at home. About four years ago, my father passed away. My mother, who was a nurse, cared for him day and night, dedicating herself to him to an extent I couldn't comprehend. She lost 14 or 15 kilograms by the fifteenth year and developed depression. She is a person of profound maternal instinct and compassion. Believing that compassion and a mother's love possess the greatest power to soothe the heart, I created works centred on the themes of compassion and motherhood. It is also part of the Hospital Art Project.

The dining room. We don't eat there. The kids use it for revision and homework. Ned is the youngest of 5 so the last to study for GCSEs. A rainforest was felled for his practice papers. It's an east facing room and I could stand in the light of the bay window and paint him, his coke cans, his milk, Alexa and all those practice papers disappearing into the darkness of a Victorian interior. I learnt a lot about Germany in the 1930s.

This portrait was commissioned to mark the launch of the television series ‘Outrageous’ charting the lives of the Mitford sisters in which Diana Mitford is played by Joanna Vanderham. The portrait was painted using a single pigment: Rose Madder, an ancient pigment known for its beauty and soft transparency, but ultimately flawed (a bit like our protagonist) in that it fades over time, thus ultimately condemning the portrait. The portrait was built up in thin layers of paint with the bare canvas acting as the white. The mirror alludes to themes of vanity and solitude, whilst the pen she holds symbolises her preoccupation as a writer.

There's a lot of people who might look at a disabled person, in a wheelchair, and think of the burdens, think of the triumphs and tribulations that it took to get there, but to me and I'm sure many other disabled persons, this is just everyday life. Sure there are struggles, and sure I had a lot of help to get here, but still when I look at my wheelchair in the morning, I don't see a reminder of that, I see a way to get to the toilet to brush my teeth in the morning. An extension, effectively, of my legs and my mobility. I created this work as a test to myself. To look at my skinny, slightly twisted and odd shaped little body in all of its vulnerabilities, and boy was it vulnerable, come to terms with it, welcome it, and love it just as I do with the person that's inside that head of his. Unity with both the interior and exterior. I think challenges like this are a testament to the fact that everything is beautiful.

When Anne was immobilised by foot surgery last summer, she became trapped into sitting for me every day for 3 months. With her magnificent blue cast stretched out before her, this offered a visual gift for any painter. In a second stroke of fortune, I was able to position her in her chair beneath my 1980s painting of a young girl leaping across the Estuary mud flats in the full glory of her youth. This created a bittersweet composition as my beautiful, leaping niece Maria died last year in her 40s, while Anne and I continue on with the infirmities of age.

This painting captures a young girl momentarily caught between obedience and discomfort while posing for a photograph at a tourist site. Her awkward posture and restrained expression suggest a quiet resistance beneath compliance. I was interested in portraying the subtle tension between public performance and private emotion, particularly in childhood. Through gesture, costume, and setting, I aimed to reflect how personal identity is shaped and negotiated within everyday social expectations.

This portrait of Tessa Brielle Willman was made entirely from life over three days of work, approximately 16 hours total. No graphite or other drawing, no gouache or opaque media - all transparent watercolour on white paper. Although the execution was over three days, about 4 months of planning, preparation, and research went into the making of the work, including a week and a half of preparatory drawings at a smaller scale, and two initial (abandoned) attempts at scale, one in graphite, one in watercolour.