EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: THE WINNER OF SKY ARTS LANDSCAPE ARTIST OF THE YEAR SERIES 10

The winner of the tenth Series of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year has been announced! After 2,000 applications, 6 heats, a Semi-Final and a nail-biting Final, Judges award-winning artist Tai Shan Schierenberg, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and art historian Kate Bryan have selected their winner. The deserving artist won a £10,000 commission to paint a landscape in the south of France for The Courtauld Gallery in London, following in the footsteps of the Impressionists.

Cass Art has supported the show since it began in 2015, supporting all participants with art materials throughout the competition as they capture inspiring UK landscapes in just four hours.

We caught up with the winner to find out more about their experience on the show and their exceptional commission.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW!

AND THE WINNER IS…

BEN MACGREGOR!

Hi Ben! Huge congratulations on winning the tenth Series of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year! How did you feel going into the final?

Thank you so much, what an honour! I still struggle to really believe it to be honest. Going into the final I felt a confidence that I could paint a decent picture and I was happy with the lake piece I’d done at home but the pressure was immense, and I felt incredibly nervous having come so far and being this close to achieving something that was a bit of dream.

You mentioned that you started painting landscapes because of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year – looking back, how does it now feel to be the winner?

Yes I did, so to have won gives me a deep sense of gratitude towards the show and everyone involved in making it, I think it’s one of the most beautifully pure of heart programmes on TV, and I feel incredibly proud to be such a big part of it now. It’s a wonderful feeling to look back and remember moments of watching early episodes before I’d even started experimenting with painting and imagining what an amazing experience it would be to do well on the programme.  

The Semi-Final was in Portsmouth by the famous HMS Warrior. With such a complex scene in front of you, how did you decide on the composition for the piece and what to focus on?

The ship didn’t interest me as a subject matter. For me, the real atmosphere was to be found in the grittiness of Portsmouth and the bits that would ordinarily be overlooked. I loved the textural elements of the Jetty and knew instantly that was what I wanted to paint, despite being slightly risky maybe!

In the final we saw you painting alongside artists Kieran Guckian and Susan Isaac at monumental Stonehenge. How did your painting style lend itself to this capturing the age and texture of the stones? Can you walk us through your painting process – what surface do you use and what tricks do you have for applying the paint?

It was a real honour being in the final with Kieran and Susan, they are both great painters. I chose to focus on the texture of the stones. It felt monumental and very special and I feel like my style of painting lent itself to this approach because of the textures I love to play with using smooth surfaces and translucent colours. I spray my canvases with a certain type of paint which gives an incredibly smooth surface and removes most of the ‘tooth’ I then apply a single layer of fairly transparent oil paint which I can scrub into the canvas and create qualities of stone within the brush strokes.  

We saw a few shots of a hand-made colour reference board you had made. Tell us a bit about that and what it is useful for.

This is a chart I made of all the paints I own with little labels of what they are so I have a quick visual reference to the colour and transparency. My palette tends to involve blues, pinks and greens primarily because I love those colours in paintings and they seem to sit very harmoniously with each other. Mainly my paint selection is based on transparency and how much texture I can achieve in the brush strokes.   

As part of the final, artists are asked to create a commission outside of the 4 hour time constraints of the Heats. For your commission, you painted a lake near you in Walton-on-Thames. What did having more time allow you to achieve in this piece?

The extra time allowed me to work on a much bigger canvas and be more ambitious. Using my usual technique, the water texture takes quite a lot of time and precision, so it was nice to be able to show that off to the judges.

For your final winning commission, you travelled to Provence, Antibes and Arles in the South of France, following in the footsteps of the Impressionist masters. You visited Cézanne’s studio in the foothills of Montagne Sainte-Victoire and a nearby archive to see some artefacts from the space, including his palette and the original famous statue from his work which hangs in the Courtuald ‘Still Life with Plaster Cupid’. What was it like to be in the space where he created so many masterpieces and how did the experience impact your final commission?

Walking into Cézanne's studio was probably the most profound experience of the whole trip because the space was completely empty, so there wasn’t much to focus on other than the atmosphere and the huge metal framed window. The space felt incredibly intimate, and I wanted to try and honour the internal struggle all artists face when they're faced with unfathomable beauty. 

Your final winning commission will be hung alongside works by Cézanne, Monet and Van Gogh, how does it feel to know your work will be hung alongside these greats and what do you hope viewers will feel when they see it?

Throughout the process, I've struggled with the magnitude of making a painting for the Courtauld, to be hung amongst the greatest painters in art history. I also struggled to be vulnerable and open to a film crew in the making of this painting, I battled with an awful lot of internal conflict which I decided to try to make a part of the final painting. I'd be happy if people feel interested enough when seeing the painting to stop and take a look. If they come away with a sense of how important that view and the project has been to me, that's a major bonus!

What advice would you give to artists considering applying for the next series?

Obviously go for it! It’s a great experience win or lose and can only help you develop as a painter.

And finally, now your winning commission is complete, what’s next for you?

Being a full-time career artist is the dream! I’m going to really try to push myself out there and keep developing this style that the show has been so instrumental in cultivating, I possibly have a solo show planned in September, It would be great to show an entire collection.   

Thanks Ben! See more of Ben’s work at benjaminmacgregor.co.uk or @benjamin_macgregor_art on Instagram.

ARE YOU THE NEXT WINNER?

If you think you have what it takes to be the next Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, entries for Series 11 close at midday on Friday 2nd May 2025. Find out more and apply at skyartsartistoftheyear.tv/landscape. Good luck!

Feeling inspired?

Read our interviews with all of the Series 10 Heat Winners & Wildcards HERE on the Cass Art blog.

If you've admired the works on the series, visit artistoftheyear.co.uk where selected artworks from all ten series, as well as from Sky Arts Portrait Artist of The Year, are now available to buy.

Check out Sky Arts Artist of the Year Masterclass, a new series featuring tutorials from a host of talented artists who have taken part in Portrait Artist of the Year or Landscape Artist of the Year. In this 40-episode series, they demonstrate easy-to learn techniques for budding artists at home. Find out more at skyartsartistoftheyear.tv.

Image credits: Photography © Sky Arts, paintings © Storyvault.