Young Maltese artist Ġulja Holland was recently featured in an episode of SKY TV’s Portrait Artist of the Year, a British television competition which aims to find the best portrait painter every year through several rounds of regional competitions in different parts of the UK.

Featured in the eighth episode of the currently airing seventh season, Holland painted a portrait of the acclaimed British actor Kwame Kwei-Armah within four hours, for which she was shortlisted as one of three artists at the end of the episode.

Ġulja Holland (left) alongside her portrait.

Holland is currently reading for a Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London. Describing herself as an expressionistic painter, Holland spent most of her time contending with what colours to use in her painting, taking her time with framing and composition.

When approached by one of the judges, Tai Shan Schierenberg, who questioned why she was using a black and white image for reference, she responded that she gravitates towards expression in painting and that colour is “more of a psychological mood”.      

She later settled on “quasi-monochrome” colours so as not to complicate the painting, but finally decided that she was “feeling green” and opted to use this as the background.

 “Until you put the paintbrush down, there’s always a chance of losing the painting”, she said, voicing some self-doubt.

Judges reviewing the works of the three shortlisted artists.

Reacting to the finished portrait, judge Kathleen Soriano said that “the fact that Ġulja does everything on her own terms marks her out as a true artist. Not only has she changed the colours, but she has introduced all sorts of elements that were not there in reality.”

Holland’s surrealist style and use of colour also made Soriano exclaim that it’s as though she has synaesthesia since she “feels mood and character through colour”.

She concluded that “a lot of what [Holland] does is about suggestion not definition” and that there are elements in the painting which are ‘not correct’ but which “keep us engaged with it”.