And the winner is -
Find out who won the Bridgeman-sponsored Royal West of England Academy Art Prize
Bridgeman came to represent Nicola Bealing when Pandora Mather Lees spotted her painting Shoal at Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition, where it won a Bridgeman Prize.
Nicola is a Cornish based artist and regular finalist for the BP Portrait Award. Since moving to Cornwall in 1988 her paintings have been exhibited each year in the West Country and in London, where she has regular one-woman shows at Cadogan Contemporary Gallery.
Influences range from Goya for dark originality, Breughel for casual irreverence and paintings rich with small incidents to the German Expressionists their ability to lavish colour on a painting, while keeping the result under control.
Ideas for paintings arrive from lots of different sources: pure imagination, reading, travelling and people watching, especially within her neighbourhood in Cornwall.
"When I get stuck for ideas I raid my large collection of grubby little sketchbooks in which I scribble drawings or notes of anything that catches my eye."
The Bridgeman Art Library has over 70 images by Nicola Bealing.