Sikelela Owen has clinched the 2025 Charles Wollaston Award at the Royal Academy for her oil painting Knitting. The £35,000 prize goes to the most distinguished work in the show, selected from more than 1,700 entries.
Displayed in Gallery VIII, Knitting struck the judges with its emotional intensity and understated power. Owen renders a domestic moment with her signature soft palette and layered, expressive brushwork. The painting’s quiet strength left a lasting impression on jurors including RA President Rebecca Salter, writer Olivia Laing, artist Hew Locke RA, and author Elif Shafak.
“The more time we spent with it, the more potent its spell grew,” said Olivia Laing, who described the painting as full of depth, ambiguity, and a sense of calm.
World-renowned author Elif Shafak said,
“There is such gentleness, softness, and humility in this painting, and yet there is also profound power and confidence. It immediately takes us to another place, but one that feels familiar, universal.”
Owen joined the ranks of Royal Academicians in 2024 and has steadily built her reputation on intimate portraits of family and friends in familiar settings. The work originally appeared in her solo exhibition Where My Gaze Falls at Tiwani Contemporary in Lagos (27 September 2024–11 January 2025)
Born in London in 1984, Owen studied at Chelsea College of Art and later the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 2012 . Her figures often appear in moments of rest or quiet contemplation, enveloped in monochromatic underpainting that evokes distant landscapes and also subtle histories . Those tonal shadows and loosely defined backgrounds balance immediacy and mystery, suggesting memory and presence without excess detail.
This was the 27th time the Academy awarded the Wollaston, a prize that dates back over a century. As the Summer Exhibition opens for its annual run from 17 June to 17 August 2025, Owen’s Knitting stands out not only as the centerpiece of this year’s show, but as a subtle meditation on care, identity, and quiet continuity
