Zena Blackwell

'The domestic setting is beautiful, still, and a touch awkward.'
- Sacha Craddock - Art critic, writer, curator)

'Zena Blackwell is a must' - Carrie Scott, Art Historian and curator and founder of SEEN

ABOUT

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 st...

2021-22 - Turps Correspondence Course

2011 - Masters in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London

1999 - BA (hons) Fine Art from Wimbledon School of Art

UPCOMING & CURRENT
- Portrait and Power / Portread a Phŵer, The Counsil Chamber, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth 1.11.25- 30.5.26
- Blush, Studio Cennen, Llandeilo, June 2026

- Elysium Gallery (BEEP Winners Exhibition with Charlotte Brisland and Susan Adams) Swansea August 2026
- Solo show curated by Carrie Scott, Liminal Gallery, Margate 17.10.26 - 31.10.26

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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 o...