Zena Blackwell

Zena Blackwell is an award-winning British figurative painter based in Cardiff, Wales. She holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins and a BA from Wimbledon School of Art, and most recently completed the Turps Correspondence Course. Blackwell has been shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Show and twice for the BEEP Painting Prize, winning the Friends of the Glynn Vivian* Prize at Beep in 2024. In 2017 she was awarded first prize at Cardiff MADE Summer Open, and in 2019 third prize at PS Mirabel's open exhibition PAINT, Manchester. She has exhibited at Saatchi Gallery and Hastings Contemporary, among other institutions, and her work is held in the permanent collection of the National Library of Wales and in private collections internationally, including by an Art News top 200 collector.

Blackwell's practice centres on the psychological landscape of childhood, memory, and family life. Working in oil paint, she stages figures — most often children — within richly patterned, domestic interiors that carry an atmosphere of stillness and latent tension. Drawing on personal memory and cultural nostalgia, her paintings explore the formative dynamics of childhood and adolescence, identity, and belonging: moments of play, dress-up, and quiet contemplation rendered with an emotional charge that hovers between the familiar and the unsettling. The domestic setting becomes a psychological stage, in which gesture, gaze, and decorative detail conspire to reveal what is felt but rarely spoken.
*Plus TATE member gallery

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings explore various themes of adolescence and childhood, drawing from my own experiences as a child and my role as a parent.
Observing my two children growing up, and the evolving dynamics between them and us all as a family unit, has deepened my fascination with nostalgia and memory, which play a central role in my recent work.
Each painting becomes an amalgamation of recollections - fusing sharp memories from my own childhood with those of my children. I often reflect on the memories that resonate more vividly, and find that they are frequently associated with family outings and holidays - those fleeting yet highly significant moments that shape our sense of self and belonging.

CV

Education
Turps Correspondence Course
MA Fine Art Central Saint Martins, London, UK
BA Fine Art (hons) Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK

Collections
National Library of Wales Permanent Collection
Several works in an Art News Top 200 collectors 2025 and 2026
Work in private collections in USA, UK, France, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Russia and Poland.

Awards and Grants
2025 1 of 3 nominees for the Wakelin Award, Glynn Vivian (Plus Tate Network gallery)
2024 Winner of the Friends of the Glynn Vivian Prize at BEEP
2024 Shortlisted for the BEEP Painting Prize
2022 Shortlisted for the BEEP Painting Prize
2021 Shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021

2019 3rd prize PAINT at PS Mirabel, Manchester
2017 1st prize Cardiff MADE Summer Open

PAST EXHIBITIONS

SOLO SHOWS:
2022 A Delicate Balance : Solo show at Canfas, Cardigan
2018 Seen Not Heard: Solo Exhibition at Cardiff MADE, Cardiff

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS:

2026

'Micromania' curated by Liminal Gallery and Kalkman Gallery, Kalkman Gallery, Maastricht, Netherlands
Affordable Art Fair - with Art Friend, Battersea Park, London
Liminal Salon III, Liminal Gallery, Margate
Together Through Art for the Sick Children's Trust, Mall Galleries, London
AOAP Projects - International Women's Day auction, Bomb Factory, London

2025

Connection - curated by Art Friend, Royal Society of Arts, London
'A Dream Within A Dream', Liminal Gallery, Margate
Art on a Postcard - International Women's Day Auction, London

2024

The Walls Between Us curated by SOTA at Saatchi Gallery, London
BEEP Painting Biennial, Elysium Gallery, Swansea and Aberystwyth School of Art Gallery
Rejects, Art Friend, Stokey Pop Up, London
Y Lle Celf, National Eisteddfod, Rhondda Cynon Taf

Latent Dreaming: AucArt x SeeFood Room at SeeFood Room, Hong Kong
Through the Looking Glass - Aucart Group Show, Fitzrovia Gallery, London
New Wave - Spitalfields Studios, London
SOTA Marketplace : Accessible Art Fair, The Lab, London

2022

Art on a Postcard Auction, The Bomb Factory, Covent Garden, London
THE OTHER ART FAIR, Truman Brewery, London
A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary, Hastings
A Room of Her Own, Irving Contemporary, Oxford
BEEP Painting Prize 2022, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
Collecting - exhibition of new acquisitions at The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
A Women's Place is Everywhere, The Cello Factory, London
Y Lle Celf, National Eisteddfod, Tregaron, Cardigan

Without Borders - Elysium Gallery (the exhibition also traveled to Japan, Norway, USA, Venice, Canada, and back to Wales)
Household Name: Group show curated by Contemporary Cymru, Elysium Gallery, Swansea with Laura Ford, Cherry Pickles, Zoë Gingell, Fern Thomas, Adele Vye and Raji Salan