Winnipeg-raised artist having pinch-me moment in U.K.

As an artist, Joel Nichols has spent a lot of time in London’s National Portrait Gallery, looking for inspiration.

And now, one of his portraits will be on view there until the fall.

The Birmingham-born, Winnipeg-raised interdisciplinary artist was one of four people to be named a finalist for the 2026 Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award, a prestigious contemporary portraiture competition held annually by the gallery.

This year’s short list was selected from more than 1,474 entries from artists across 63 countries. Nichols was chosen for his 2025 oil-on-canvas portrait, In Our Borderlands, which is also among 51 portraits that have been chosen for an associated exhibition opening Friday.

While Los Angeles-born, France-based painter Marc Dalessio took home the top prize of 35,000 pounds (about C$65,500) at the ceremony in London on Tuesday, Nichols, 26, was feted with the Young Artist Award, which comes with a prize of 9,000 pounds (about C$17,000) and is given to an artist between the ages of 18 and 30.

“It was surreal (to be nominated),” he says over the phone from London. “And the work that I’m exhibiting with is so incredible, never mind to be put forward for one of the awards, and then eventually winning the Young Artist Award. It’s still sinking in as I speak.”

This isn’t the only pinch-me moment Nichols has had in his young career. After graduating from the University of Manitoba’s School of Art in 2023, Nichols returned to his native U.K. to complete a master’s degree at the University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art as a Rhodes scholar.

Nichols has the distinction of being the 100th U of M student to earn the much-coveted scholarship, which provides funding for two years of full-time post-graduate studies at Oxford, as well as the first successful finalist from the School of Art.

When he began his studies at U of M, he was actually a faculty of science student with designs on becoming a doctor.

The seeds for In Our Borderlands were planted in an Oxford dorm room, where Nichols and his friends would get together and cook or watch movies as a way to foster community. Nichols was struck by the way the light came across his friend Jo’s face, and wanted to capture that moment.

“I was trying to deal with the idea of vulnerability as a relational space, so something that doesn’t necessarily mean to be precarious or at risk, but something that’s just inherently human, and a foundation for human connection,” he says.

Nichols has been experimenting with giving up some control in his portraiture practice, allowing the subject to help pick the reference photograph or the light that’s used.

“At the end of the day I’m still painting it, but it’s just to kind of question those dynamics of the subject, the viewer and the artist, and try to question, if not complicate, that hierarchy in the practice,” he says.

From the winners’ announcement: “The judges admired the painting’s distinctly mysterious atmosphere and the technically accomplished use of light, which shapes both the psychological depth of the sitter and the spatial complexity of the composition.”

It’s been a big week for Nichols, who also just handed in his dissertation for the art history degree he’s completing at Oxford.

“I’m massively sleep deprived at the moment,” he says. But he’s already thinking about what’s next.

“I was very lucky that I’ve been offered a little bit of funding to cover my living costs, so I’ll most likely be London-based, making a body of work that I’ll be executing over the next year.”

In the meantime, to have one of his own works up in one of Britain’s most significant galleries “is, for lack of adjectives, crazy,” he says with a laugh.

“It’s a space that I’ve been in quite a lot, just to get inspiration and see the historic works that are there, so to have my work up alongside them is just surreal. I don’t quite have the words for it.”

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