EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: WINNER OF SKY ARTS PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR SERIES 12
4th Dec 2025
The Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Series 12 has been crowned! The deserving artist won a £10,000 commission to create a portrait of award-winning Mathematician and Broadcaster Professor Hannah Fry for the Royal Society. Their work was carefully selected and critiqued by a panel of expert judges - award-winning artist Tai Shan Schierenberg, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and art historian Kate Bryan.
Working with Winsor & Newton, Cass Art has supported the show since the first series in 2013. We caught up with the winner of Series 12 to find out more about their experience on the show and discuss their work…
WARNING SPOILERS BELOW!
AND THE WINNER IS….
CHLOE BARNES!
Hi Chloe, firstly, congratulations on winning Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Series 12! How do you feel?
Thank you so much! Honestly, I don’t think it’s all sunken in yet… I felt there was so much risk in everything I did at every stage of the competition! But I am grateful, feel proud in myself and extremely happy for everything I poured into this opportunity.
Your sitter for the Semi-Final was national treasure Dame Mary Berry, who brought along her dog Freddie. You created an incredible double portrait in a teal monochrome on aluminium. The work was full of movement and life, with a great likeness - Mary even chose to take yours home with her. Tell us about your experience on the day.
I found the day so much fun. Having watched Mary Berry on Bake Off, I already felt like I had an idea of how I wanted to paint her and the emotion I wanted to portray.
Moving on from the heats, I decided to work bigger and incorporate additional things to the portrait, like tinting the metal and painting in highlights in the background. Freddie was an additional challenge, especially as you can’t tell a dog to stay perfectly still for 4 hours… but I was pleased how he turned out and that I included him in this double portrait!
I was overjoyed when Mary picked my piece to take home - it meant so much that she formed a connection with it.
Your painting of Mary saw you selected by the judges to compete in the final, where you were asked to capture acclaimed Actor Brian Cox. So far in the Series, we had seen you paint on aluminium, the first half of the printing process. You took the decision to bring a printing press to the Final to print the work and show your predominant practice to the judges. When it came to printing, the suspense was immense! With only one opportunity to pull the print, were you nervous and can you walk us through your process on the day?
My god… it was nerve wracking! Making a monotype in the finals was the ultimate risk, but even if it went horribly wrong, I had to do it and show people the complete process of what I do. There’s so many factors that could have gone wrong; I was using a press I never used before, heat from the studios lights can make inks dry quicker, and I had to paint my portrait in less time.
I spent about 3 hours painting my plate before I printed it. Then I spent the last 30 mins adding finishing touches with pastels and watercolour. Although I grappled with Brian’s likeness and could have done with more time, I am extremely proud of myself for taking the risk, and that it pulled off!
As part of the final, artists are asked to create another commission and given longer to do so. You decided to capture your housemate and good friend Matt in your living room. The judges were impressed by the varied ways you applied the inks to describe form and light. How did you decide on the composition for that piece?
Me and Matt have had many nights chatting away in our living room. I was contemplating composition and emotion whilst sitting on our couch and realised this was where I wanted to portray him. I wanted Matt’s portrait to have a lightness and sense of nurture, so having the window behind him and incorporating plants, helped me add context, focus points, textures and patterns.
I did studies of Matt in my living room before taking a part of the couch to my studio, so I could paint him from life. I made three monotypes over the weekend - selecting my first attempt to present in the finals!
Throughout the competition, we’ve seen you experiment with your art supplies, from painting and printing to mixing media. What are your favourite art supplies for different media?
For printing, I use Charbonnel etching inks and typically print onto Hahnemühle 300gsm paper. For Hannah Fry’s portrait, I experimented and used Arches Huile paper, which is specially designed for oil painting and allowed me to print and glaze use Liquin. For watercolour and gouache, I use Winsor & Newton. For pastels, I love using Sennelier for their vibrancy and pigmentation.
Your work beyond the Series explored the story of Atalanta, the Greek heroine of hunting, through some self-portraits - you became emotional when discussing the meaning. Tell us more about that body of work.
I resonate a lot with Atalanta’s story, seeing reflections in my life, upbringing and familial situation. Throughout my life, I felt like I had multiple barriers and expectations set upon me as a woman and artist from a working class background. So Atalanta became a way to explore my identity, channel my experiences and emotions. It was a project that provided me with a lot of empowerment. Atalanta is fierce and a badass! In my own way, I took monoprinting, pushed it and made my own, and pushed passed the barriers presented before me.
Your winning commission was to create a portrait of Mathematician & Broadcaster Professor Hannah Fry. You had 3 sittings with Hannah before the final piece was complete. Firstly, meeting her in her home in Blackheath, where you created studies and then at your studio, where you walked her through the printing process. You seemed to have a lot in common and developed a wonderful rapport. How did your connection influence the outcome?
There were strong, sensitive and humorous sides of Hannah that I wanted to explore, whilst making sure that her portrait had a presence that would hold up in the Royal Society. It was funny chatting with Hannah about what she was looking for in her portrait. Initially, I was thinking of ways in which I could actively nod towards her mathematic achievements - whether that was an object or her surroundings - but Hannah quickly shot that down for being a little twee! From then onwards and through us developing a connection, I honed in on Hannah and her life as a whole, from her body language, the chair she sat on, her two daughters, her thoughtfulness and confidence, which inspired me greatly.
In the programme, we saw you make multiple versions of the final commission, trying various scales and poses to capture the best likeness. When you’re not restricted by time, how do you decide when to stop? What makes a work ‘finished’ for you?
The funny thing with monoprinting is that time will always be a restriction for me, and that is one of the reasons why I love it. Emotion is at the heart of what I do, and with excessive amounts of time, you increase the risk losing the essence of it. Because of this, I work in attempts, where I have up to eight hours to paint my plate before I print it. It’s only when I see the monotype unveil itself to me that I get an intuitive sense of whether I captured the emotion I set out to. If I captured it, the monotype is “finished”, give or take some hand embellishments. If not, I try again! As Hannah’s portrait was the biggest monotype I’ve ever made, I made and wiped several paintings; getting used to the scale and feel of marks I wanted to make.
The final commission was revealed at The Royal Society, which merges art & science, and houses a collection of portraits, sculptures and an archive of scientific history. How does it feel to have your work displayed at The Royal Society alongside greats like Hogarth, and more contemporary names like Sky Arts judge Tai Shan Schierenberg and Jonathan Yeo?
I’ve been trying to push and innovate monoprinting, which feels very fitting for the Royal Society - an institute that champions scientific achievement and innovation! Whilst surreal, the opportunity to have work hanging with these artistic greats means the world and validates all the literal sweat and tears I’ve poured into my practice.
The Royal Society was celebrating the 80th anniversary of the first women to be elected to its fellowship. Yours is the first portrait of a living female scientist by a female artist to be on display there. What does that mean to you?
In both science and the arts, there has been a historic inequality towards women. So having the opportunity to paint Hannah’s portrait is a significant for both industries. I feel honoured to be a part of this moment, whilst hopefully empowering women and girls into the arts and STEM.
Do you have any tips or advice for any artists thinking of applying for future series of Portrait Artist of the Year?
I would really think about the how you can adapt your practice to fit in the 4 hour time frame, whilst staying authentic to your style and way of working. For me, that was painting on aluminium, but you can easily play with scale, marking making and composition.
Also… and most importantly, practice - you want to feel prepared when you get to the heats. And do what you gotta do to go to get in the zone; whether that’s also taking off your shoes and dancing to music to get there.
And finally, what’s next for you?
I have several projects in mind that I’ve wanted to pursue for a long time! Winning Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year has gifted me the luxury of time to bring these to life… so stay tuned!
Thanks Chloe! See more of Chloe’s work at chloebarnesartist.com or @chloe_barnes_artist on Instagram.
ARE YOU THE NEXT WINNER?
If you think you’ve got what it takes to become the next Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, the deadline for entries for Series 13 is Friday 20th February 2026. Find out more and apply at skyartsartistoftheyear.tv/portrait. Good luck!
EXHIBITION: MARKS OF REFLECTION
SKY ARTS PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2025 SEMI-FINALISTS
Noho Showroom will host an exclusive exhibition of works by the semi-finalists of Portrait Artist of the Year 2025, on view from 16th to 21st December, 2025 at 67 Great Titchfield Street, W1W 7PT. Find out more here.
