Laura Quinn Harris

Laura Quinn Harris is a UK artist specialising in oil portraits of people and animals. Her work has been displayed in exhibitions across the UK and abroad, including the prestigious BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition. She has been shortlisted for the Wildlife Artist of the Year and A&I Artists of the Year Awards and was a runner-up in Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year. Her sitters have included Sir Ian McKellen, Richard Dawkins and Armando Iannucci. She was also commissioned by the Royal College of Music to paint Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, whose portrait now hangs in the Britten Theatre.


Laura gained a degree in Mathematics from University College London, followed by a degree in Scientific & Natural History Illustration from Blackpool and the Fylde School of Art and Design. Here she discovered a passion for producing highly detailed images of the natural world. She enjoys focusing her attention on all the little elements that make a face unique, and builds up many translucent layers of oil paint to achieve the detail in her paintings. She undertakes commissions from all over the world and each one can take up to several months to complete.

2020 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London

2020 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

2020 Perceptions – Contemporary British Portrait Painters, Cass Art, Islington

2020 Make It Open, Wigan Steam, Wigan

2019 RBSA Portrait Prize, RBSA Gallery, Birmingham

2018 Wigan Open, Isherwood Gallery, Wigan

2018 Birds in Art, Woodson Museum, Wisconsin

2018 DSWF Wildlife Artist of the Year, Mall Galleries, London

2018 Being Allowed to Look, Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester

2018 Lancashire Open, Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk

2018 St Helens Open, World of Glass, St Helens

2018 Shortlist, Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester

2018 Glory of Tradition, Isherwood Gallery, Wigan

2018 New Light Prize, Bowes Museum , Barnard Castle

2017 Natuurlijk Natuur, Kunstgalerie Staphorsius, Westzaan

2017 Birds in Art, Woodson Museum, Wisconsin

2017 Face to Face, Cass Art, London

2017 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London

2017 Exhibition of Wildlife Art, Gordale, Wirral

2017 Women in Art, Burgh House, London

2017 DSWF Wildlife Artist of the Year, Mall Galleries, London

2017 RBSA Prize, RBSA Gallery, Birmingham

2017 The Swinley Group, Isherwood Galler...