A 21-year-old Brighton art student has been chosen to exhibit alongside old masters including William Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Sophie Williams was one of just 55 artists picked from among a record 2,748 entries from 92 countries to exhibit in the BP Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery.
She is about to enter her third year at Brighton University where she is studying fine art painting.
Her painting is of her grandparents and called Just After Noon.
It can be seen at the gallery, just off Trafalgar Square, in London, until Sunday 20 September.
The exhibition will then go on tour to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Miss Williams, who came to Brighton from London, said that she was shocked when she heard of her success.
She said: “To be given the opportunity to exhibit my painting among such highly regarded artists is humbling and exciting.
“Having visited the show on a number of occasions, I remember telling myself that one day I hoped I could see my own work at this exhibition.
“As you might imagine, I was overwhelmed when I received the news. This is an achievement I have been working towards ever since I began studying painting.
“However, rather than treating it as some kind of pinnacle, it has given me motivation to keep on improving, to progress into an artist who can establish a career in doing what they love.
“Living in Brighton is such a great and inspirational place to be and studying fine art painting has been the best possible course and choice I could have made.
“There is a great balance between painting in an environment that allows you to express your own ideas and subject matter and the individual guidance and support from our tutors.
“The course has helped me develop my practice and grow as an artist. I could only recommend it.”
For more information, visit www.sophie-williams.com.
WHAT a good painting!!! Sensitive to how it FEELS to be old (I’m 69!). And I have looked at the drawing of another older person in a chair on her website. The way we concentrate, display that concentration and react to life changes with age and this artist homes in on that. Fantastic to see sympathetic insight into the dignified and confident side of what being intelligently old is about. Reflecting and revealing without being condescending, flattering or patronising. I liked her painting best of all the entries.