Painting Against the Clock

Landscape painting has long occupied a central place within the history of British art. From the atmospheric studies of Constable and Turner through to the modern tradition of painting outdoors, the genre has remained closely tied to the experience of observing the landscape directly. Landscape Artist of the Year builds upon this tradition by placing artists in front of a chosen view and challenging them to interpret it within a limited period of time.

Each episode of the programme brings together a group of selected competitors who are assigned small individual “pods” from which to paint the scene before them. Given only four hours to complete their work, artists must respond quickly to shifting light, weather and atmosphere while developing a painting that reflects their own interpretation of the landscape. The eventual winner of the series receives a £10,000 commission for the permanent collection of a British institution, as well as art materials supplied by Cass Art.

Filming for the 2018 series took place across a range of striking locations around the United Kingdom, including the dramatic waters of Loch Fyne in Scotland, the historic surroundings of Inveraray Castle, and the sweeping coastal views of Viking Bay. Martin Taylor was selected to paint at Broadstairs Beach in Kent, a site long associated with Britain’s maritime landscape tradition. The view from the pods looked across the broad sandy bay towards the harbour and chalk cliffs beyond, offering artists a subject rich in changing colour, light and movement.

Taylor’s participation in the programme reflects a career long commitment to painting the landscape directly from life. Born in 1954, he studied at Ealing School of Art, Wimbledon School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College before establishing his practice in Northamptonshire. Working from a converted stable on a farm, he draws continual inspiration from the countryside surrounding his studio — the fields, hedgerows and woodland that form the subject of many of his paintings.

Central to Taylor’s practice is his dedication to painting en plein air. Returning repeatedly to the same viewpoint over a period of days or even weeks, he studies the subtle changes of light, weather and season across the landscape. Often working from the back of his Land Rover as his only shelter, he paints throughout the year in all conditions, from bright summer mornings to frost-covered winter fields. This sustained observation allows him to record the landscape with remarkable precision, from the structure of distant cloud formations to the smallest details of grasses and twigs.

Although Taylor began his career working primarily in watercolour and drawing, he now works predominantly in oils, enabling a richer depth of colour and greater expressive range. His paintings combine careful composition with intricate observation, capturing the character of the English countryside at every scale.

Taylor’s work has received significant recognition over the course of his career. He won the Chris Beetles Award from the Royal Watercolour Society in 1988 and the Jeffrey Archer Award in 1989, and has exhibited widely both independently and with Gladwell & Patterson. Today his paintings are held in numerous private collections across the United Kingdom and the United States.

The judging panel for the series included independent curator Kathleen Soriano, art historian Kate Bryan and the award-winning painter Tai Shan Schierenberg. Together they assessed the works not only for technical ability but for originality and personal interpretation. As Bryan observed, landscape painting offers artists a unique opportunity to show the world through their own eyes, revealing how different painters respond to the same view.

The episode featuring Martin Taylor aired on 13 November on Sky Arts, offering audiences the opportunity to see him painting on location and responding to the shifting conditions of the Kent coast. For those familiar with his work, the programme provided a revealing insight into the process behind his landscapes, demonstrating the speed of observation and compositional clarity required when painting directly before the motif.