Georgia Mallin

Photos by Kwasi Afrifa.

I am a figurative artist working mainly in oil painting and drawing. Born and raised in London, I graduated with a First in English & Spanish from the University of Oxford, but was determined to ensure art remained a key part of my life. From 2017-19 I studied the Diploma in Portraiture at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, where I was taught by artists including Miriam Escofet, Tim Benson, Atul Vohora, Melissa Scott-Miller, Allan Ramsay, Kate Hopkins and Fred Crayk. I was awarded the Daphne Todd Portrait Prize in 2018.

Working from direct observation has long been fundamental to my practice, with an emphasis on accuracy, draughtsmanship and the fall of light. Making a painting or drawing from life is a powerful act of paying attention, and each piece of observational work shows my intense preoccupation with the act of looking.

As a portraitist, I hope to convey a sense of psychological insight as well as capture the beautiful complexity of the human form. As a language and literature graduate, I am also interested in how visual art and narrative intertwine – in painting as a way of storytelling, and creating the sense of a complete and believable world.

Since graduating from Heatherley’s, I spent two years studying with Alison Harper, Melissa Kime and Dan Coombs at the Essential School of Painting, where I was a lucky recipient of the ESOP Newman Young Artist Scholarships 2019/20. I spent my time at the ESOP exploring how imagination, memory and feeling can be the springboard for making images. This developing strand of imaginative work sits alongside, and is informed by, my many years of working from observation - as well as my life-long love of reading stories and being transported to other worlds by works of art.

Alongside my personal practice, I teach oil painting at the ESOP and also work to commission - creating bespoke art for individual clients and theatre. If you would like to commission me or buy one of my existing works, please do get in touch.