Born 1999 | Lives and works in London, UK
Emily Gillbanks is a contemporary figurative painter and researcher from East Anglia, United Kingdom. At the age of 20, she was the youngest person to complete her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, Battersea, London. She was awarded The Fribourg Philanthropies Painting Prize when she graduated. Gillbanks was the first artist in 2023 to complete both The Chargeurs Philanthropies Foundation’s Painting Residency in Marseille and the Daler-Rowney Artist Residency in Bracknell. At the Daler-Rowney Residency, she created bespoke oil hues in the colour laboratory, with her paintings now featured in the Daler-Rowney collection and other prestigious international art collections.
In 2024 and 2025, Gillbanks was shortlisted for the Herbert Smith Freehills Prize at the National Portrait Gallery. In early 2023, she collaborated with the Barbican Centre on a social media campaign discussing her paintings alongside Alice Neel’s retrospective.
