Ania won the Young Artist Prize at the 2018 BP portrait award with her painting of two women artists, and her depiction of fellow millennial women as independent “world-changing” creatures continues with her Hampstead solo debut
Portrait painter Ania Hobson holds her debut London solo show at Hampstead’s Catto Gallery next month.
The 30-year-old, who won the Young Artist prize at the 2018 BP Portrait awards, unveils her latest work which features her fellow millennials as independent women often in workwear and chunky boots.
Ania’s latest oils build on the contemporary figurative style that saw her portrait of two female painters win the National Portrait Gallery competition from more than 2,600 entries.
Hobson’s sitters have an insouciant quality that speaks to an a rising feminist consciousness. She strives to avoid perfection, preferring to exaggerate her figures and allowing her emotions and experiences to guide her work.
“I like celebrating modern day women but I avoid painting them in a stereotypically feminine way,” she says.
“Women artists are now breaking through and becoming recognised for what we do, and I want to be part of that movement. I am trying to make my mark in a man’s world and I want to help portray women as strong, world-changing creatures.
“This is a big moment for me. I could not be more thrilled to have my first solo show at a major UK gallery.”
Hobson is the great-granddaughter of Polish artist Edward Trojanowski, and began
painting at an early age in her native East Anglia where she was raised on a smallholding near Saxmundham.
She graduated in 2011, with a degree in fine art from Suffolk University and went on to study at the Princes Drawing School in London, and Italy’s Florence Academy of Art.
Last year, she was invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale as part
of a group show called Personal Structures – Identities.
She now works from studios in Woodbridge Suffolk.
Ania Hobson’s show runs September 5-23 at Catto Gallery, Heath Street, Hampstead.
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