Mary Jane Ansell is a British figurative painter working in oil whose work occupies a rich territory between classical portraiture and contemporary narrative. Drawing from the language of Old Master painting, haute couture, and the complexities of gender and identity, her canvases portray figures imbued with a contained but
dramatic quality, characters who carry stories that she describes as developing collaboratively with her sitters. Her technique is meticulous and refined, with a deliberate sensitivity to conservational practice so that each work is made to endure across generations. She works from her studio in the Welsh borders and takes commissions in the UK and internationally.
Her awards are considerable. A four-time finalist in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 2004, 2009, 2010, and 2012, she was subsequently commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, whose portrait now sits in their permanent collection. Further accolades include the 1st Prize at the Sussex Open Award for Painting, the Threadneedle Figurative Prize nomination, and the Enchanted Living Magazine Award at the 15th Annual ARC Salon in 2020. In 2022, critic Michael Pearce writing for Mutual Art described her as "England's finest figurative painter," and in 2017 she was named one of the Top 100 Figurative Painters Working Right Now by BuzzFeed.
Her works are held in museum and private collections internationally, including the National Portrait Gallery, Brighton and Hove Museums, the Bennett Collection, and the Joe Lewis Collection. She has exhibited extensively in London, New York, and Los Angeles, with solo shows at Arcadia Contemporary in New York and the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, and is a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Contemporary British Portrait Painters. Her work has featured on the covers of American Art Collector, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, and a number of published novels.