Geoffrey Harrison

Geoffrey Harrison is an award-winning British figurative artist. Primarily a painter, he also works with drawn media, printmaking and sculpture. His practice also includes curating and organising art events as well as teaching drawing and painting. Originally from Manchester in the north of England, Geoffrey has lived and worked in Japan and London and now lives and works in Bristol. He holds a degree in Fine Art Printmaking and studied Japanese Art in Japan and undertook a Masters’ Degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Geoffrey has worked across the Art/Science field working with many institutions including the Royal College of Art, the MAA, The Royal College of Pathologists, Medical Research Council, St Georges Medical School and Queen Mary University of London. He was Artist in Residence at St Barts Pathology Museum and the Royal Veterinary College on a Leverhulme Trust residency and was also awarded a grant from the Animal Care Trust. In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Bulldog Bursary and has since established a successful portraiture career, undertaking numerous commissions for private and public spaces. He has been a member of the prestigious Contemporary British Portrait Painters’ group since 2021, with whom he exhibits regularly. His work is regularly featured in the calendar of exhibitions in the UK, including the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Discerning Eye, the New English Art Club, and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. He won the Sequested Prize in 2022 been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award and the Herbert Smith Freehills Award in 2024. Geoffrey was a Semi-finalist on Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year and was invited to feature as Portrait Artist of the Week, where he painted a live portrait of broadcaster and journalist, Samira Ahmed for Sky Arts live broadcast.
Portrait of painter Justin Cole who will exhibit at the Shoreditch Modern gallery

Selected solo shows

2023 – BS5 Open Studio, Bristol
2021 – Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Week, Facebook and Sky Arts TV
2021 – 100 Beardy Baldies – Drawing Project
2021 – The Big Studio Sale – Great Ormond Street, London
2016 – ‘portrait’ – Bloomsbury Festival, London
2014 – March 2015 – ‘me . complete . you’ – The End is Near Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, NY.
2014 – Open Studio – Royal Veterinary College, Camden, London
2013 – ‘me . complete . you’ – Barts Pathology Museum, Smithfield, London
2012 – ‘Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men’ – Museum of London, City of London
2011 – Art Cycle Art – Internet media art and cycle documentary project. London to Land’s End
2010 – ‘Autopoiesis’ – Chapel of Rest, St George’s Gardens, Camden, London
2010 – ‘Konseki’ – School of Oriental and African Studies, Bloomsbury, London
2010 – ‘In the Midst of Life’ – The Art Workers Guild, Holborn, London
2009 – ‘Islands’ – Stone Theatre, Southwark, London

Selected group shows

2024 – Contemporary British Portrait Painters – Department Store, Brixton, London
2024 – Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Portrait Award – Birmingham
2023 – Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral
2023 – Green & Stone Summer Exhibition, London
2023 – NEAC – Mall Galleries, London
2022 – Contemporary British Portrait Painters – Department Store, Brixton, London
2022 – ‘Sequested’ Self Portrait Art Prize – Winner
2021 – Sky Portrait Artist of the Year exhibition – Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2021 – Discerning Eye – Mall Galleries London
2021 – Cambridge Invitational Exhibition, Castle Fine Art, Cambridge
2020 – Portraits for NHS Heroes – Art Book, published by Bloomsbury
2020 – Royal Society of Portrait Painters – Mall Galleries, London
2019 – Royal Birmingham Society of Artists – Birmingham
2018 – People’s Portrait Project – Oliver Spencer, London
2018 – People’s Portrait Project, Building Centre, London
2018 – Creekside – Deptford X, London
2018 – Recordless Release – Bar Babette, Berlin, Germany
2018 – Sky Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition – Clarendon Fine Art, London
2017 – Skeletons, Stories & Social Bodies Conference – University of Southampton
2016 – Bloomsbury Festival – People’s Portrait Project – London
2016 – Modern Panic VII – Bethnal Green, London