BP Portrait Award 2018

Nice exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery for the shortlisted entries in this year’s Portrait Award.

 
This is one of the highlights of my art year and I thought this year's was a good show. It was a shame it was in a smaller gallery to usual as it felt cramped and it was hard to see the work from a distance. In the larger gallery I love some of the views through the space so pictures pull you across the room. This didn’t happen this year.
 
I liked Laura Nardo’s picture of an attendant at the National Gallery of Scotland which was touching as Nardo also works as a guide there. Tom Bedeman’s picture of his brother was clever as it was painted on the reverse of glass so the image cast a shadow. Also giving a mention to J.J. Delvine’s “The Ocolograppher” self portrait of himself in his studio with items from his collection. It had a feel of the National Gallery’s St Jerome in his study which did hang on the wall in the picture.
 
I loved the winner this year Miriam Escofet “An Angel at my Table”, a picture of her mother in white with a table of white ceramics. I’d seen it before at a Society of Portrait Painters Show and not realised that a vase and bowl are shown moving across the canvas. So clever.
 
However I’ve picked Paula Wilson’s self-portrait as the image on this story as I loved the jumble of pattern in it contrasting with her hair.

Closes on 23 September 2018


 
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