Ben Sadler My name is Ben. I love painting. I live in Birmingham with my wife Katy, our daughter Hazel and our cat Oscar. Oscar has got three legs. I paint in the evenings. I paint pretty much every evening. I paint people and animals and things. Most of my paintings are small and intimate,…
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Contemporary British Painting Prize 2026 Artist Ben Sadler is the prizewinner of the 2026 CBP Prize, receiving £8000, an essay written about his painting practice by Georgina Kettlewell (Director of YAS), membership of Contemporary British Painting and to be one of the selectors for the 2028 CBP Prize. The ‘Highly Commended’ winner is Christopher Cook….
Header image: Paint Shadows, Installation view, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Photo Pete Carr, National Museums Liverpool, 2025. Artist of the Month August 2026: Graham Crowley, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. “I paint shadows. I’m intrigued by luminosity in painting. This is the driving force behind LIGHT INDUSTRY*. I’ve always been fascinated by those of Manet….
Congratulations to the shortlisted artists We are thrilled to announce the artists for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2026. The 15 shortlisted artists are: Andrew Bryant | Christopher Cook | Gwen Evans | Pippa Gatty | Mathew Gibson | Caroline Gorick | Melanie Guatelli | Christopher Hanlon | Jinyong Park | Ben Sadler | Katy…
Congratulations to the long listed artists Aglaé Bassens | Andrew Bryant | Arthur Lanyon | Ben Sadler | Caroline Gorick | Caroline List | Catriona Pavek | Charlotte Roseberry | Christopher Cook | Christopher Hanlon | David Hancock | David Kiely | David Micheaud | E Haworth | Emma Bennett | Gill Rocca | Graham…
CBP Projects A conversation between multimedia artist Sarah Gillham and painter Mindy Lee ahead of their two-person exhibition – Sirens. Mindy: We have been friends for over 20 years, since studying Painting together at the Royal College of Art.Sarah: I saw your work and was intrigued, I didn’t quite understand it, and I think that’s…
Artist of the Month June 2026: Sophia Rosenthal, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Born in South Korea, raised in the Philippines, and now based in the UK, Sophia Rosenthal’s painting practice is rooted in a desire to explore memory – particularly in relation to identity, belonging, and migration. Working primarily from personal childhood photographs, Sophia…
Phil Illingworth traces the themes that connect Natalie Dowse’s practice, and how her engagement with particular imagery, from archival footage and found photographs to film and television, led to her Mise en scène series.
This essay by Dr. Stephanie Cussans Moran is from the catalogue for Ruth Calland’s solo show This Is All the Treasure We Can Have or Hold, held in 2025 at 20:21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, and touring in 2026 to Hastings Museum & Art Gallery. As I began to find a language for my own nonbinary identity…
‘Of Bodies New and Strange’ This is from a recent talk given for Turps Margate at Turner Contemporary in which I discuss metamorphosis in my painting of human figures.Susie Hamilton I often paint solitary people in desolate environments yet push this bleak but ordinary world towards something unfamiliar and uncanny. My figures morph into other…
CBP Projects Body and Identity BODY AND IDENTITY is the first of CBP’s new structure of annual themes which will run from September to August, sitting alongside our existing exhibitions programme, the Prize and other projects. Our aim is to create a lively discourse about painting and culture, both between CBP members and other artists,…
Declarative Language Declarative Language was a group exhibition presented at Amici Studio in Hastings in collaboration with artist-curators Kelly Jessiman and Alexis Soul-Gray, bringing together artists whose practices have been shaped by sustained caregiving within families of neurodivergent children.
Artist of the Month April 2026: Liz Elton, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Liz Elton’s practice considers issues of waste, compost and the recycling of matter. She explores loss and grief; potential and hope; nourishment and care; environment and temporality. Her work is grounded in landscape and still life painting and she employs a wide…
March 2026: Marius von Brasch, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Marius von Brasch’s paintings explore transformation, identity, and the inner journeys of change, loss, and renewal. Moving between abstraction and figuration, each work holds memory, emotion, and reflection, inviting viewers to witness and engage with their own personal evolution. ‘For a long time, I have…
The Contemporary British Painting Prize 2026 First Prize £8000 + moreHighly Commended Award £2000£400 exhibitor’s fee for all shortlisted artistsTwo exhibitionsTwo full-colour catalogues PLUS: The Judith Tucker Memorial PrizeThe YAS Exhibition Award Entry for the 2026 prize is now closed Thank you to everyone who entered and Good Luck! Key dates monday 11 may Open…
Mind How You Go: Small Paintings from the Edgelands This exhibition gathers together eight painters whose work has a distinctive take on looking at landscape. From the raw concrete of modern living and the Victorian terrace to the scrappy spaces around cities and towns where human presence is entangled with nature. In the edgelands trees…
Artist of the Month January 2026: Sally Taylor, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Sally Taylor’s work affirms a desire to understand more about human relationships, specifically her own interaction with others. They are equally about a balance between formal concerns and the communication of emotional resonance. Using found materials enables the superimposition of marks in…
This free PDF publication accompanies Unquiet Landscapes, an exhibition of contemporary painting shown at Yorkshire Artspace (YAS) in Sheffield, from December 2025 to January 2026. Produced in partnership with Contemporary British Painting (CBP), Unquiet Landscapes showcases 38 artists, continuing a series at YAS celebrating contemporary painting in Britain. Above: Graham Crowley, Orford Ness Study 1Header…
Artist of the Month December 2025: Lisa Denyer, selected and interviewed by Paul Newman for CBP. Lisa Denyer’s practice explores the polarities of a slow, considered painting process against the speed and sensory perceptions of daily life. The work relates to the body, the spaces we inhabit, and the visuals we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Surfaces are…
Unquiet Landscapes is a collaboration between Contemporary British Painting and Yorkshire Artspace, curated by Joanna Whittle. “The land will entrance us and in the end bury us, with impartiality. If it seems to have great beauty, that is because of what we are, not because of what it is… The unquiet country is you.”– Christopher…