About / CV
'Painting is the perfect medium in using the framed edges as a stage to let you into the world as Zena sees it.'
- Zoë Gingell, Director at Cardiff MADE
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 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
Arts Council of Wales 'Create' Award Turps Correspondence Course 2021-22
2020 Arts Council of Wales awarded to Contemporary Cymru for HOUSEHOLD NAME
Arts Council of England awarded to Contemporary Cymru for HOUSEHOLD NAME
2019 3rd prize PAINT at PS Mirabel, Manchester
2018 Arts Council of Wales Grant towards the cost of 'Seen Not Heard'
2017 1st prize Cardiff MADE Summer Open
Open Studios
2025 Arcade Studios 10 Year Anniversary Open Studios
2019 Cardiff Open Studios
2016 Cardiff Contemporary Open Studios
Made in Roath Festival Open Studios
Press/Printed/Online/Books/Interviews
(for recent press coverage, please go to Press)
2021
Poetry Wales - 2020 #4 featured on the cover of the Summer 2021 issue
Axisweb - New Art Highlights
Axisweb - Five 2 Watch
Saatchi Art - The Color Catalogue (digital & printed copies distributed to 250K US collectors)
Photographed by Bernard Mitchell for the Wales Arts Archive
Obsessed With Art - Bathroom Art - ‘Fibre, Back, Plastic’ featured
2020
FAD - Preview of HOUSEHOLD NAME
Chapter Arts Newsletter - highlighting 6 artists taking part in #artistsupportpledge
2019
The London Reader
Axisweb - Highlights (December)
Together and Sunspell – interview and photos
Axisweb – one of five painters to watch (January)
Axisweb – Highlights (April)
2018
A-N – ‘Seen Not Heard’ included in Top 5 UK exhibitions of the week
Western Mail Newspaper - double page feature
Wales Arts Review – feature
Wales Arts Review – included in a list of 10 of the Best of Welsh Visual Arts 2018
Around Town Magazine ‘Cardiff People’
Galleries Magazine
Cardiff Students
Buzz Magazine
Cardiff Times review of Seen Not Heard
BBC Wales – Eisteddfod review mention.
‘Painting of the Day’ - Contemporary British Painting
Axisweb - Highlights
Saatchi Art – Curated collection
Cardiff Life Magazine
Radio Cardiff ‘Pitch Illustration Radio’ hour-long interview
2017
Cardiff Life Magazine
‘Under the Radar’ - Artslant global mailout
Lumin Journal
‘Painting of the Day’ Contemporary British Painting
2009
Flying Graphics, Monsa, Barcelona
2008
Fly By Night, Thames & Hudson, London
Historical
a-n Magazine Degree Show Special
Misc
2017-present day – Founded Contemporary Cymru
2010-2013: Curated the Art in the Bar programme at Corsica Studios
2005: Judge and award presenter at The London Short Film Festival, ICA, London
2000: Showcased recent work on the TV series ‘Young, Gifted & Broke’