Art of PR
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Opening Times:
9am - 6pm
Following its successful launch in 2024, The Art of PR returns this September for a week-long exhibition presenting 19 artists with connections to the UK public relations (PR) Industry.
The free art exhibition is at The Coningsby Gallery, London, open to the public from 8th – 13th September, where it will display and sell works from artists currently working in PR alongside art by PRs-turned professional artists.
There will be an extended opportunity to see this year’s show in a new virtual gallery hosting the exhibition, supported by arts magazine www.occhimagazine.com, running from 15th September to 15th October.
This year’s exhibitors include: Kim Badland, Lucy Baker, Justine Bower, Joanna Drabent, David Emmanuel Noel, Tonye Ekine, Emily Rose Halladay, Alexandra Heybourne, Jessica Jackson, Shama Johns, Ade Lee, Clara Pérez Miñones, Simon Moore, Gemma Moroney, Fola Odumosu, Nadia Padayachy, Ruby Quince, Joe Thomas and Stella Tooth.
The Art of PR 2025 will present a diverse range of artworks including painting, drawing, letterpress, digital, wet plate photography, digital photography and sculpture.
The exhibition’s founder and curator and Boldspace senior creative Ade Lee said, “The Art of PR supports and promotes original and free human creativity in the PR sector. This is pure creativity unleashed - no brief, no client and no restrictions, with the freedom for PR artists to express themselves any way they wish. The impressive array of talent and the quality of the art will send a powerful message that creativity is not just alive but thriving in the PR world.”
The Art of PR 2025 is partnered by Boldspace and 72Point Group.
Mike Robb, Co-CEO, Boldspace said, “The Art of PR is a special event that not only supports the PR industry’s incredible artists, individuals who dedicate so much of their own time to personal creative advancement, but uniquely brings them together for a collaborative industry showcase like no other. We are proud to have backed it, and Ade’s incredible hard work, since its inception.”
Chris Pharo, CEO, 72Point Group said, “At 72Point, we believe that the heart of truly impactful PR lies in creativity and human connection. That’s why we’re proud to support the Art of PR, a collaboration that celebrates the craft of storytelling and the people behind it. This partnership is a powerful reminder that great PR isn’t just about reach - it’s about resonance.”
The Art of PR 2025 exhibitors include:
Kim Badland: Kim Badland is a figurative painter who started her PR career at Burson working for consumer and healthcare clients. She worked for Cohn & Wolfe before moving to Accenture to head-up the UK PR team and ultimately ran the firm’s annual Global technology client conference. Kim’s artwork is inspired by her love of colour and the effects of light on her subjects. She mainly uses oils and enjoys painting portraits, landscapes and still life. She has a degree in the History of Art from Manchester University and is currently studying at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London.
Lucy Baker is Earnies’ Creative Director. Her campaigns span from pro bono work for Killed Women, ‘Killed Here’, which changed domestic homicide law, to TfL’s Look Up piece, which went live through one viral Linkedin post. She largely works with acrylics, creating small, satirical still lifes. Baker is also the author of “Swipe Left”, published by Harper Collins, which she entirely illustrated and wrote.
Justine Bower’s career includes over 20 years in broadcast publicity at Channel 4, CNN, Sky News, UKTV, a BBC Studios company, and she is currently communications director at media giant Global. Having previously exhibited in New York, Justine creates digital portraits and abstract paintings with a signature vibrant colour base. She is featured in PR Week’s PowerBook of the top 100 most influential PRs in the UK, and has previously won PR Week, PR Moment and CIPR Awards for creative PR campaigns, as well as PR Week Best Places to Work while at UKTV.
Joanna Drabent: Former CEO and co-founder at Prowly—a tech company founded in 2013 that helped revolutionize communication tactics in the PR industry worldwide. Prowly’s success caught the attention of a major American tech giant, and in 2020 was acquired by Semrush Inc. For many years PR and entrepreneurship were her primary focus, but art has always been her first and greatest love. She views her painting as a journey, often without a plan for the final result, but with a constant awareness of the environment in which she lives or follows.
David Emmanuel Noel has managed a variety of public-facing campaigns for UK Government departments, multinational companies, and institutes including the Department of Education, NHS Estates, Royal Institute of British Architects and Responsible Finance (formerly the CDFA). He is co-founder of Occhi Arts and Entertainment, a New York and London-based consultancy supporting emerging artists, fringe film festivals, and international art fairs. An interdisciplinary artist and advocate for cross-disciplinary collaboration, his artwork has been featured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Kennedy CenterWashington DC, and Affair of the Arts, Culver City.
Tonye Ekine, a corporate comms executive and former MikeWorldWide staffer, is an alumni of Camberwell College of Art and a renowned artist. Tonye is an ROSL Rising Star who had been featured on Harper Bazaar and has various group exhibitions under his belt. Tonye’s art explores the concept of identity and persona, shedding light on the way we interact and hide our true intentions behind masks in our everyday lives.
Emily Rose Halladay is a creative at global entertainment agency Stellar. Emily studied advertising at Central Saint Martins and paints impasto oil portraits, landscapes and abstract artworks.
Alexandra Heybourne has spent over 20 years working for media companies in-house and at agencies, is presently a director at a major agency, alongside being a founding mum for PR Mums and on the board of the Greater London CIPR committee. Her photography explores the art of the every day, from brutalist buildings looked at from a different perspective to human connection observed from the crowd.
Jessica Jackson is a London-based artist with a practice rooted in intuition. Working automatically, she allows her unconscious mind to guide her artistic process, resulting in a deeply expressive use of colour, texture and mark-making. Inspired by the spiritual and the unseen, she describes her paintings as a process of discovery rather than intention. Over the past 20 years she has worked as a Communications consultant in the entertainment sector for some of the world’s leading talent and is communications consultant for humanitarian organisation The Lotus Flower.
Shama Johns: After a career in PR including agencies Havas, Kindred and in house at dating app Inner Circle, Shama recently transitioned to working as a full-time artist. Shama’s still life paintings celebrate food, community and the joy of gathering around a table. Drawn to colour and texture, her work seeks to capture not just how a moment looks, but how it feels — the light on a ripe peach, the gleam of a wine glass, the intimacy of a half-eaten meal. Shama’s work is a love letter to shared rituals, the beauty of the everyday, and the spaces where we come together.
Ade Lee has worked at various PR agencies since the mid 90s. A former director of publicity at Sky and managing partner at Taylor Herring, he is currently senior creative at Boldspace and founder/ curator of The Art of PR. Ade specialises in the historic photographic practice of wet plate photography, an early process from 1851 that requires mixing (explosive!) chemicals and silver to sensitise glass or metal plates to light, shooting on a large format 8x10 camera, and developing the plates within 15 minutes whilst still wet. The process is slow and complex and creates unique one-off images called ferrotypes (if on metal) or ambrotypes (if on glass) that are finally varnished with sandarac as per Victorian tradition.
Clara Pérez Miñones is a Spanish-born painter and PR professional with over nine years’ experience leading cultural communications campaigns across music, festivals and the arts. As Account Director of the Culture & Experience team at Full Fat, she oversees PR strategies for clients including Sziget, Bilbao BBK Live and London’s Design District to name a few. Alongside her work in communications, Clara is an artist with a lifelong love of painting - first mentored by a local Spanish artist from age nine in her hometown, A Coruña. Now working from her home studio, she creates pieces that reimagine her passion for flowers and everyday moments inspired by art history icons.
Simon Moore has held various creative director roles including at Cake, Mischief, Havas and Porter Novelli and a freelance creative consultant for various agencies. Simon studied Fine Art in Newcastle upon Tyne and has exhibited his work at various times including participation in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. Gemma Moroney is half of the co-founders of creative comms agency SHOOK. She’ll be showing letterpress, involving her first love: words and her second love: words she’s written. Her piece includes an original poem inspired by the sea: no surprises given she lives in Brighton, where she also performs in poetry slams and one of her poems ‘Lapped’ features in ‘Poems on the Buses’. The effort of making letterpress and the fact the blocks have printed a thousand things before (and show the marks and chips of their life) that appeal to her.
Fola Odumosu is a London-based artist working across disciplines to create unique, handcrafted sculptures that celebrate materials. Her abstract forms and imagined architectures are crafted intuitively, each one a distinctive expression of a feeling. Fola has worked in consumer PR for 20 years. She currently works at Ogilvy PR as a Client Partner and global brand communications lead for her clients.
Nadia Padayachy has worked with PR firms for 14 years and is UK and Global Marketing Manager at PR firm Grayling. A quarterfinalist in Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year 2024, Nadia has previously exhibited in the Rising Tides Exhibition at The Gallery at the Playroom in Archway, London, and contributed to the NABS Art Auction, supporting mental health for professionals in marketing, media and advertising.
Ruby Quince is a creative director at Burson. He’s worked as a publisher at Thames & Hudson, founded a techie start-up in the 90’s (Itchy Media) and plays music on Hoxton Radio. Inspired by the march of AI, his current work features fabricated objects and symbols of changing rituals as technology, creativity and workplaces collide.
Joe Thomas has worked as an award-winning creative and corporate comms leader in agency and in-house environments for brands including Virgin Media, Google, itsu and Aldi. Joe currently advises a number of brands, organisations and PR agencies. Joe will be exhibiting his latest studio work inspired by a love of cartography which explore perceptions of psychological and geographic place as well as hosting a series of live portraiture sittings throughout the exhibition.
Stella Tooth, a former senior PR at Sky News and BBC News, is a London-based portrait artist with over 10 years’ experience in traditional oil painting. Stella studied at The Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea, undertakes private commissions including for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and is resident artist at the Half Moon Putney.
For further information please contact: Event organiser: Ade Lee Adrian.lee@boldspace.com / 07500 955 284 Gallery: The Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ info@coningsbygallery.com / 07884 314 361