ELLIS KING

Ellis King (b. 1989) is a British figurative painter based in Norwich, UK. She returned to painting using the female figure to explore the emotional and psychological realities of womanhood — from identity and inequality to resilience and the quieter aspects of private life that are often absorbed, minimised or left unspoken.

Working in oil and acrylic, King brings the literal and the semi-imagined together, building recognisable figures while allowing the space around them to dissolve. This creates a tension between the physical world and the interior one. Domestic spaces are central to her most recent work. Bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens and other familiar environments become psychologically charged, holding traces of memory, emotion and private life. Rather than illustrating a particular story, the figure becomes a way of holding what has happened, what is being felt and what remains unresolved.

King has exhibited widely across the UK. She was named one of 100 Emerging Artists by the Arts to Hearts Project in 2024 and appeared on Sky Arts' Portrait Artist of the Year (Series 12). In 2025, she was awarded the SQFT Gallery Exhibition Prize at the Women in Art Prize, and in 2026 was runner-up in the inaugural WellHung Painting Prize and shortlisted for the Behind the Artist Awards.

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