DETERMINED to showcase her absolutely exemplary portraiture talents on this years Portrait Artist of the Year is Warrenpoint native Seana McEvoy.
Mrs McEvoy, whose talents as an artist were honed to a fine point under the tutelage of those who taught her at Our Lady’s Grammar school, has secured her place in this years competition due to be broadcast on the Sky Arts Channel.
Not only is a considerable degree of fame and renown on the canavas for the competitor who is named this year’s portrait artist of the year, but also a once in a lifetime opportunity to use their skills to paint a portrait of Lorraine Kelly with an accompanying commission worth £10’000.
However for Miss McEvoy, who is well on her way to completing a masters degree in production design at the National Film and Television School to even compete in such a prestigious contest will go a considerable way to boosting the talented 28 year olds profile within the world of production and art.
Portrait Artist of the Year.
“I am originally from Warrenpoint. I left Our Lady’s in 2015. I always loved art. I practiced hard and gained skills in it.
“ I would say that the time I spent at Our Lady’s was the time where I had the most time to practice it. I also had a really good teacher, Miss Gallagher Lavery. She was my A level Art Teacher.
“I specialise in portraiture mostly but I do illustration as well. Portraiture involves portrait painting and drawing mostly monochromatic oil painting.
“ I am based in London at the moment doing a Masters in Production Design for Film and TV at the National Film and Television School. From this I want to work in an Art Department in Film and TV.”
Seana’s journey as a competitor on portrait artist of the year would begin whenever she like many of her fellow artists submitted a self drawn portrait of herself to the shows adjudicators.
Self-Portrait
“I applied to Portrait Artist of the year with a self- portrait. You have to do a self Portrait to be able to apply to the show. I did this and was lucky enough to get chosen to take part in the show.
Quite a lot of people apply. There were eight or nine different heats and nine artists get chosen to compete in each heat.
“Out of these nine one person gets through to the semi-final from each heat. There have been two programmes shown so far but mine are showing next Wednesday (Tomorow night).
“During the heats we were split into three groups of three artists and then they have a celebrity sitter for each group of three . There are three different celebrity sitters. We then have four hours to create a portrait during the day while they are filming of our celebrity sitter. From this painting they decide who goes through. It is whose art technique they like the best or who they think would make the most interesting person going through.
“The one who wins the finals of portrait artist of the year gets to paint a portrait of Lorraine Kelly with a £10’000 commission.”
For those wishing to view Seana’s sensational strokes of the brush first hand they can tune in to this years Sky Portrait Artist of the Year due to be broadcast tomorrow night (Wednesday) October 23 at 8pm on the Sky Arts channel.
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