Staff

Adebanji Alade, otherwise known as ‘The Addictive Sketcher’, features regularly on the BBC’s The One Show, and can often be found sketching travellers on the London Underground. He trained at Yaba College of Technology in Nigeria, later obtaining a diploma in portraiture from Heatherley’s School of Fine Art in Chelsea.

Adebanji is the president of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters; a full member of The Guild of Fine Art in Nigeria; and in 2014 was elected to the council of the Chelsea Art Society. He also belongs to Urban Sketchers Worldwide and Plein Air Brotherhood.
His awards include Buxton Spa Sketchbook Award (2014); winner of Pinta Rapido Plein Air Event at Chelsea Town Hall in 2013; winner of Best Painting of a London Scene, Chelsea Art Society in 2010; the Alan Gourley Memorial Award at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Exhibition 2017, and numerous others.

Adebanji has a strong following in the US as well as the UK. He writes regularly for The Artist magazine and exhibits with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters as well as teaching at the Heatherley School of Fine Art. He also runs workshops and demos for schools, colleges, universities and art societies.

The son of a watercolour painter and a sculptor, Duncan’s formative years were strongly influenced by the images and objects being worked on in the studios, the same studios in which he was to find his own nascent drawing and painting skills.

He studied at Berkshire College of Art and Central Saint Martins, a period where he was able to formulate his interest in many visual art disciplines and where the flexibility of mixed media and crossing boundaries allowed him to move freely between painting, print, collage and fabrication.

Allan Ramsay, artist, born 1959 in Edinburgh, is a portrait painter based in London.

Allan attended figure drawing classes at Edinburgh College of Art from 1978-1982. He then went on to study drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art from 1982-1986. He also trained at the Art Students League in New York.

In 1988 he won first prize in the John Player Portrait Award / BP Portrait Award at the National Gallery in London. As part of this prize he was commissioned to paint the portrait of Sir Alan Ayckbourn for the NPG permanent collection.

Other notable commissions include a portrait of Dr.John Mackay, Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh District Council.

He was also a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award (Canada), a prestigious award for figurative painting.

He has regularly exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Academy summer exhibtion.

Atul Vohora is a painter who has lived and worked in London since 2001. He studied at Canterbury Christchurch and The Prince’s Drawing School.

Carl Randall graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, The Royal Drawing School and Tokyo University of Arts, Japan. He is the winner of national art competitions including the 2012 BP Travel Award at the National Portrait Gallery and The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, as well as the Nomura Art Prize in Japan. Randall has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, National Portrait Gallery, Jerwood Gallery, Mall Galleries, and art fairs in Taiwan, Istanbul and Switzerland. He recently has solo exhibitions in Japan and London. His work in the collections of The Royal Collection, UCL Museum, London, Tokyo Geidai Museum, Japan, and Fondation Carmignac, Paris. He lived in Japan for 10 years and his catalogue ‘Japan Portraits’ is on sale at the Hayward Gallery.

Chris has a B.A. in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (1977-81), and an M.A. in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London (1988-90). At the Slade, where he was taught by Patrick George and Euan Uglow, he received the Monnington prize (1979) and the Taylor prize in Fine Art (1981) and he was awarded a Distinction in the History of Art examination by Professor Sir Lawrence Gowing. Having studied both painting and art history he now teaches both at Heatherley’s. He says: “There is probably some connection between studying past art and producing art now, but although it is not straightforward I do find this dual focus of my work interesting. Each aspect is revealing about the other, sometimes in ways which cannot be articulated.”

At Heatherleys, Chris ran the Open Studio from 1986-96, he now teaches painting on the Diploma in Portraiture, and organises and delivers the art history programme of lectures.

Having studied Italian art of the 14th century under Professor John White at UCL, and Professor Francis Ames-Lewis at Birkbeck, Chris has lectured for Birkbeck since 1991 specialising in Italian art from the Early Renaissance to the Baroque. He has also lectured at The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The Open University, Sotheby’s Institute, The History of Art Studies and for many other organisations. He has written for Art History, The Art Newspaper, and The Art Book.

His publications on British figurative art include the Introductions to the exhibition catalogues Patrick George, Recent Work at Browse & Darby, London, 2010; Susan Engledow. The principle of tranquillity. Paintings and drawings from 1985 to 2015, (El Palacio de Congresos de Ronda, Spain, 2016), Patrick George: From Prose to Poetry, (Cobbold & Judd, Colchester, 2018) and the Introduction to The Likeness is in the Looking. Collected Writings of Patrick George, edited by Susan Engledow, (Sansom & Company, Bristol, 2020). His most recent publication is the Introduction to the exhibition catalogue Patrick George 1923- 2016 Landscapes, Browse and Darby 2021.

His paintings have been exhibited in solo shows and group exhibitions at The Mall Galleries, The Royal Festival Hall, and three times at the Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, where his 1983 entry was commended, and was used for the poster in 1984. He has painted portrait commissions in this country and abroad.

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8005860/christopher-moock

My work explores the territory between ‘still life’ and ‘landscape’, between the intimate and the epic. I paint from the landscape of debris and clutter, organic material and small plastic animals that accumulate in my studio. Because of the random juxtapositions of objects, specific lighting conditions, and the process of long slow looking, the perception of scale is skewed and the spaces become ambiguous, evoking prehistoric wildernesses, wastelands, secret gardens and savannas. I am interested in activating greys; exploring the elasticity within grey; animating colours within a relatively narrow chromatic range by means of their mutual interaction. For me the atmosphere in the painting is as dependent on this kind of optical tension, and on the manipulation of rhythmic structures, as it is on the illusory quality of the image itself.

Daniel Shadbolt studied painting at Chelsea College of Art after which he completed the Drawing Year at The Prince’s Drawing School. He has exhibited regularly since getting into the BP Portrait Award in 2002, including The Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and the Lynn Painter Stainers Prize in 2005 and 2007. He also participates in group shows and holds open studios. He was the second recipient of the Bulldog Bursary; a new award for portrait painting from The Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

David Stubbs was born in Brighton and grew up in West Sussex. He trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, graduating in 1981. Painting, drawing and printmaking have remained his principle occupation, supported by part-time lecturing in art schools. He has exhibited his work widely in solo, group and open exhibitions, most notably in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the New English Art Club and the Discerning Eye. His work is held in numerous private collections in Europe and the United States.

Fred Crayk, BA; PGDFA(Edin.); PGCE; PGC(3D Design, Distinction)(UAL); PGC (History of Art & Architecture, Distinction)(University of London) Fred Crayk was born in 1952 and grew up in Malta and the Highlands of Scotland. Initially he studied in Paris at the Academie Roderer and the Musee du Louvre and then went on to full-time study at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. This was followed by post-graduate study at Edinburgh College of Art. Fred presently lives and works in London but has spent extensive periods working abroad. Throughout the 1980s he lived and worked in Hungary and from 1994 to 1997 he was invited to work at Cite des Arts Internationale in Paris. From there he went to the British School at Rome as an Abbey Scholar.

He has exhibited extensively both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Solo exhibitions include the Talbot-Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, The Pilgrim and Bruton Street Galleries, London, the White Gallery, Budapest , the Galerie Samy Kinge, Paris, and the Kunstraum, Starkow, Berlin, Germany. His work has also been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery (John Player, now the BP Portrait Award);The Discerning Eye Exhibition and the National Open Art Exhibition at the Royal College of Art.

Committed to painting and drawing, his work deals with portraiture within the context of narrative figure composition. Images and ideas flow from religious iconography, socio/political events and film. Equally committed to the teaching of painting and drawing Fred believes that Heatherleys is the best place to learn the skills necessary to become a good painter as it preserves a traditional approach to teaching founded on objective observation and analysis.

Born in the UK of Greek Parentage

After leaving the Slade school Fine Art University College London, Levantis accepted an Artist Placement Group residency with Ocean Fleets of Liverpool, taking him to Japan, Africa and South East Asia. The work produced constructions made from canvas paint bamboo etc. materials acquired in different ports.

These are documented in a publication “Pieces of sea fall through the stars”

“these themes have surfaced again and the work I am presently engaged in features narratives that are once more related to sea, salt, wind and birds’

I work almost exclusively in egg tempera, which can be a painstaking and exacting medium, but one which allows me to express a feeling I have about the look of the world. All my work is the product of direct and intense observation, which can produce as a result a heightened sense of realism, where every surface detail is given almost equal consideration.

The work of painter Gianluca Rotelli can be found in private collections throughout Italy and abroad. His paintings are executed directly from life, using the traditional techniques favoured by the great masters of the Italian Renaissance.

Gianluca Rotelli was born in Livorno, and graduated from the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze in 1997.

In 2000, studying under the supervision of Daniel Graves at the Florence Academy of Art, he was awarded a scholarship in recognition of his artistic talents. During his three years of study, he learned in-depth the sight-size method and specialized in oil painting techniques. His charcoal drawings of classical statues on “carta Roma” paper can currently be seen at the exhibition gallery of the Florence Academy of Art.

In 2009, his interest in the Russian drawing method led him to study with Russian Professor Vitalii Borovik, from the Repin State Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg.

Gilbert Whyman qualified in architecture at Manchester University and studied sculpture at Kensington & Chelsea, Morley College and South Thames College.

As the passion for sculpture took over he retired as an architect and is now is a well established sculptor receiving regular commissions.

He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Society of Portrait Sculptors and has work in private collections in the UK, Australia and New York.

He has recently been elected as Associate of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

Hilary Daltry is a painter printmaker who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (B.A. Painting) and at Chelsea School of Art (M.A. Printmaking). She was awarded The Prix de Rome Scholarship in Printmaking in 1985-6 and a Greek government scholarship to Athens in 1988.
Always working from life she draws directly onto woodblocks. The subject matter of her prints includes portraits, allegorical figures and fruits and flowers. Her prints are often included in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and she is a council member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. Her work can be seen at the Bankside Gallery.

Ian’s work is mostly concerned with painting the landscape and the architecture of the human head. He studied at Norwich School of Art and Royal Academy Schools.

Born 1970 Nottingham. Lives and works in London and Copenhagen. Studied at University of Northumbria at Newcastle 1989-1993, Royal College of Art 2004-2006. Member of The Royal Society of Portrait Painters & Contemporary British Portrait Painters. Winner BP Portrait award 1996, Winner The Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture 2018, Winner The RP Award 2019.

The late John Walton studied at Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford, Slade School of Fine Art, London. Exhibited at Royal Academy, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Paris Salon, Academie des Beaux Arts — Institut de France, and throughout the UK and France.

He was a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painter, Governor of the Federation of British Artists 1983-96 and Chairman 1990-96.

Joletta Thorburn is a print technician and tutor at The Heatherley Sschool of Fine Art. She trained the London Print Studio.

Lucy Cobb has a degree in Sculpture from Edinburgh College of Art. She is a professional potter working at North Street Potters. She teaches at Heatherley School of Fine Art and Clapham pottery; a community pottery. She runs paper clay masterclasses, and hand building courses.

Lucy Le Feuvre studied BA Hons Fine Art at Newcastle University, Postgraduate Sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools in London, was a guest student at Vestlandets Kunstakademi in Bergen Norway and has a Post Diploma in Sculpture from the Ecole D’Art de Marseille-Luminy, Marseille France. She is the recipient of numerous Awards and Scholarships including The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Award and The International Studio Program Award New York City one year studio residency. She has exhibited her work in Britain, Europe, Scandinavia and America.
Working in wood, her work sensually explores utility, scale and form.

Maggie Jennings, printmaker and painter, has been teaching printmaking throughout her career. She is endlessly fascinated by the techniques. Whilst enjoying the formality of each process, she also loves to break their rules and stretch their boundaries.
She teaches regularly at Heatherley School of Art and the Prince’s Drawing School

Born in London, 1959. Melissa studied at the Slade School of Fine Art 1977-1981. In 1999 she was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the New English Art Club.

She has won numerous awards, amongst them The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, Second Prize in the South Bank Painting Show, the Oakham Gallery Prize at the New English Art Club, and most notably First Prize in the Lynn Painter Stainers Prize exhibition in 2008.

Melissa mainly paints views of London, working on the spot in oils. She likes to fill her canvasses with tiny details applied thickly with size five-nought brushes. Her portraits often feature complicated detailed backgrounds.

She exhibits regularly with the Royal Academy Summer Show, The BP Portrait Award, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters and The Lynn Painter Stainers Prize.

She has also had three solo shows, at The Albemarle Gallery in 1987, The Grosvenor Gallery in 1995 and the Mark Jason Gallery in 2007.

Minna Stevens is an artist who graduated from the BA course in Fine Art at Goldsmiths and went on to study design history at the Royal College of Art and the V&A Museum but returned to her true passion for painting. Her sensitivity to colour and structure rebuilds a figure or a landscape in such a way that it both explodes and resolves her subjects. The visual experience is held in the balance, between coherence and disintegration. Her paintings open out and offer breathing space.

Ostensibly, her subjects are familiar, often children and animals, and her treatment seems relaxed and casual, yet there is an energy and urgency that gives vitality to fleeting moments. Her portraits capture her sitters in time while making us aware of the mechanics of perception and of the act of painting itself.

Laura Smith completed her BA at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2003 and went on to win the Richard Ford Award from The Royal Drawing School in 2004.  She graduated from her MFA at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2012, winning the Clare Winsten Memorial Award.  She was shortlisted for the Threadneedle Prize in 2011 and 2016. Laura became a member of the NEAC in 2022. Selected group shows include: Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, 2018; Spring Exhibition, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2018; Little Clown My Heart, Arthouse1, 2018; Control to Collapse, Blyth Gallery, 2017; Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, 2014 and 2016; Models and Materialities, Bay Art Gallery, 2016; Creekside Open, APT Gallery, 2015 and 2017; Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries, 2015; The Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2012.

She positions her work near the edge of still life painting, where it approaches abstraction. She is interested in dissolving our familiarity with everyday objects. Currently, she is working with the idea that repeated motifs not only allow for a deeper investigation of the objects themselves but also a freedom in their portrayal. Her work often depicts emotive gestures and actions. Objects take the place of the loved, the abandoned, the closely held.

Kate Hopkins (born 1964) is a painter, with still life central to her practice. Working from appearances, she has a particular interest in the nature of visual perception, which underpins her teaching.
She studied at the Slade from 1985-1991 BA(Hons) and HDFA), and shows her paintings at Browse and Darby, with a solo show in 2016.

Natasha Lien is a fine artist in drawing, painting and printmaking. Her compositions depict people, landscapes and cityscapes working with perspective, colour and tone, rhythm and form. She draws and paints from life and in many locations, from drawing large scale interiors in the V&A, creating etchings from detailed studies of trees on Hampstead Heath, to painting landscapes in Jordan, Morocco and Greece.

Natasha studied at Central St Martin’s, completing her postgraduate studies at The Prince’s Drawing School. One of her drawings, Kensington Gardens (138 x 149 cm) was selected 2007 Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy. The drawing, depicting a view of trees, was given a special mention by Ben Levine who thought it “especially memorable”. It was featured on The Royal Academy website and in their illustrated catalogue. Natasha received a commission for a 4ft x 4ft drawing of The Old Vic Theatre. Notable drawings include “V&A New Court” and “Trajan in the Cast Court”; a solar photo etching of the latter was acquired by the V&A in 2014. In 2016 Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts acquired two paintings for their collection.

Natasha exhibited at the 2004 and 2008 Royal Academy Summer exhibitions, the Friends Open exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the NEAC at the Mall Galleries, Chase Exhibition at The Royal College of Art. She held a solo exhibition in the Pearson Gallery at The Slade and has exhibited in NOA at Somerset House and Bermondsey Project Space “Drawn to London” exhibition in 2018 and “Advanced Breakthroughs” Blah Blah Projektraum in Berlin.

Natasha is an exhibiting member of the Arborealists. Recent exhibitions include: The Musee Collegiale Sainte-Croix de Loudun , France, 2019, the Art of the Tree and Guests, Young Gallery Salisbury, The National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, Being with Trees, Bermondsey Project Space and Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, Gibraltar 2021.

Public and Private Collections include: Victoria and Albert Museum, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, HM King Charles III.

Born in London 1956, Paul went to Dulwich College, Camberwell Art and Crafts School, and Hornsey Art School / Middlesex Polytechnic, graduating in 1979 with BA (Hons) Fine Art. He has exhibited extensively in the United Kingdom as well as in France and Germany. He works in his South London studio, where he paints his models and he still lives. His landscapes are from London, Cornwall, France and Germany and reach as far as Transylvania. He has a special liking for bridges because of their beauty, their graceful strength and symbolic meaning.

Paul is a gifted portrait painter. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery. Because his portraits are painted from life, not from photographs, they capture the essence of the person, rather than a transient expression. His paintings have been exhibited at numerous Royal Academy Summer Shows, as well as at the John Moores Painting Exhibition in Liverpool and the National Portrait Gallery.

I have returned to painting the landscape of my native Scotland where the subtly shifting light and its effects over the land hold an endless fascination for me. I favour oil as a medium because I love its blending qualities, well suited to the myriad nuances of tonal shift I am trying to convey. I also paint in gouache and watercolour. Working directly from the landscape and from sketches, my work seeks to explore the boundary between realism and abstraction, the point at which an image transcends the purely representational. I usually start with reference to a particular place but often the painting moves off in another direction, always remaining within the realms of realism but becoming more about an evocation of place than a faithful replica. I use brushes, palette knives and often my hands, working fast across the canvas to try to capture a fleeting moment.

Sarah Jane Moon is a painter who specialises in portraiture and figurative painting. Her work explores identity, gender and connection to place. Physically, her paintings are large, gestural and suffused with a love of colour, surface and her chosen medium: oil paint.

She has exhibited widely, including with the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, New English Art Club and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. A recipient of the Arts Charitable Trust Award, the Bulldog Bursary for Portraiture, her work has consistently been recognised for its ambition and singularity. It has also been featured in Time Magazine, The Guardian, Wallpaper*, Studio International and other publications.

Moon is based in the UK, although was raised in New Zealand and has lived in Japan, Malaysia and Australia. She has postgraduate qualifications in Art Theory, Curatorial Practice and Portraiture. In the UK, Moon works in London and Sussex and when in New Zealand she paints in the Bay of Plenty.

Tessa Eastman is a British ceramic artist who has twenty years of experience of working with clay. She lives in London and works in Studio Manifold with a group of artists and designers who founded the studio in 2010.

She was head of the Malden Centre Pottery studio and has worked as an assistant to renowned ceramicist Kate Malone, who recently featured in The Great British Pottery Throw Down TV series. Tessa’s ceramic sculptures have been shown by various galleries in the UK and abroad and she has just won the Craft Emergency prize at Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth. She is a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and is currently working towards an exhibition with Puls Gallery in Brussels in March 2017.

Tessa has produced a fresh body of work that grew out of her MA at the Royal College of Art in 2015. These original pieces demonstrate her ongoing commitment to the challenge of hand building in clay. The often overlooked detail of microscopic structures is observed as a starting point to developing works which possess a curious ambiguity. Time is devoted to glaze testing and research. Equally through use of rich glaze surface and three dimensions, pieces develop depth of character.

A classically trained artist and teacher, Ron Best has exhibited widely.
Ron’s art explores the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, the frontiers where the classical tradition of painting and printmaking fuse with a Modernist sensibility.
His work has an instinctive sense of the creative process. Searching out the rich and sensual possibilities of paint, collage and printmaking, Ronald typically creates a dense matrix of layered form, colour and texture, offering a new perception of reality.

Susan studied at Camberwell and RA Schools, Fellow of Painting Cheltenham & Gloucester University. Richard Ford Award to Madrid, British School at Rome Abbey Award Holder. Illustrated Katherine Mansfield Short Stories for the Folio Society 2000. Her works are in public and private collections in UK, New Zealand, Spain and Italy, (including portraits) and she is represented by Browse & Darby.

Tony studied sculpture at Goldsmiths and the Slade School of Art and was a recipient of a Sainsbury Award. He has taught at pre degree, degree and postgraduate levels and was course leader for the National Diploma in Art and Design at the University for the Creative Arts. He has taught at Heatherleys since the 1970s, as course leader for its Foundation course and as Director of Studies.

His work, which is often produced in sequences and series, involves a number of processes and media including: casting in metals and resin, welding and collage. Current imagery has focused on the transient quality of the human face and the way that identity is changed by make up, facial expression and surgery. Most pieces are wall based.

Sharon Low | Liu Guo Fei  MA SWA is a British and Australian artist of Peranakan Chinese heritage. Her work has regularly been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Mall Galleries, and Bankside Gallery.
Based in London, she is a fine artist specialising in printmaking, painting, mixed media and book arts, with a particular focus on children and families.

Fascinated by people, her work takes inspiration from family and friends: contemplating the idea that, as we age, life is written on our faces, our hands, and the way we hold ourselves, telling the stories of all the tragedies, happiness, laughter and tears.

She has an MA Visual Arts: Printmaking from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London (UAL). Other studies have included the Diploma in Portraiture from The Heatherley School of Fine Art, and Fine Art at the National Art School in Sydney, Australia, as well as studies in Japan in washi making (Japanese papermaking) and mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printmaking).

Rob Turvey studied Fine Art Sculpture at City and Guilds of London Art School and has an MA in Sculpture Studies from Leeds University (an academic MA in the Theory, History and Practice of Sculpture). He has also worked in antiquities and building conservation/restoration, sculpture fabrication and as a sculptor’s assistant to various sculptors. Rob Turvey has been teaching sculpture since 2000.

Since graduating from the Byam Shaw School of Art in 2001, Tim has exhibited his landscape and portrait paintings in numerous galleries in London and further afield. In 2011 he was elected as a member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2018 – 2023.

Veronica Ricks graduated in sculpture at Bath Academy of Art and the Royal College of Art, after which she was awarded a Greater London Art Association award. She was called as an expert witness at the Nelson Mandela Sculpture Tribunal and has been a member of the judging panel for the Society of Portrait Sculptors and a Mentor for the Founders’ Sculpture Prize. She was appointed Principal of Heatherley’s in 2014 prior to which she had been Vice Principal and Head of Sculpture. Veronica has exhibited sculpture and paintings in watercolour which explore the way that light can alter the meaning and appearance of everyday places and things.