Martha Zmpounou won Anne Rothenstein’s Choice Award this year with her work Dressing Up.
In this interview, she discusses her hybrid creative practice, the unpredictability of watercolour, and her approach of discovering rather than creating her pieces.
Above image: Martha in her studio
Dressing Up, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour, monoprint on paper, 90 x 110 cm | 35.4 x 43.3 in
Josephine: Could you share the story of how you became an artist and tell us more about your artistic background?
Martha: I joined a foundation course at 18 to prepare for the fine art school’s entry exams. I then continued on to complete my BA in Fine Art and Painting at Aristotle University of Fine and Applied Arts in Greece. During that time, I experimented a lot with printmaking, in particular etching and woodcutting, along with my painting practice. Looking back, those years were not only very fun, but also pivotal to my growth as an artist and all that was coming. It was an intense period, very formative in many ways.
After graduating, I stopped painting for a couple of years and turned to handmade jewellery instead. When that cycle came to an end, I returned to drawing and painting, and went on to complete a Master’s degree at Central Saint Martins. I started painting and drawing intensively and started exhibiting my work in the UK, in various group exhibitions, mostly in London. After graduating, I began lecturing at UAL and other Universities as a way to keep my art practice alive, and I’ve worked as a part-time lecturer ever since. I now see my practice as hybrid, split between two different modes that I try to keep separate, while trying not to keep them separate from each other! What I mean is, I see my art and teaching as two different worlds that need to remain so, but it is also beneficial when one informs and influences the other.
Works in the studio
Josephine: What does a typical working day in the studio look like for you? Do you have any important routines or rituals?
Martha: The first thing I always do is make a cup of tea or coffee and put on one of my favourite playlists or podcasts. Then, I usually start by making some initial collages or draft drawings of ideas for my compositions. This is mainly when I am working with monotypes, as they require a bit of planning. Gradually, the process becomes quite meandering. The image is initially painted in parts onto household materials like acetate and plastic, which creates a distancing from the painting surface. It is a method that sets a mindset and mood for a more spontaneous painting process; I can easily alter and change areas before printing onto the final surface. I transfer the paint with a spoon onto paper or lightweight cotton.
Red Room, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 70 x 100 cm, 27 x 39 in
When I work directly with watercolours on paper, I might start by warming up with playful abstract applications of colour in pools of water, playing with the effects of my media and looking to ‘discover’ my pieces rather than create them. I like to embrace unexpected accidents that happen during the process and let them inform/become my work. My works are often created through multiple layers and the paintings develop by continuously responding to the medium’s inherent qualities.
Mother and Children, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 90 x 114 cm, 35 x 44 in
Josephine: Which materials or tools could you not live without?
Martha: I think I am one of those artists who, if deprived of my favourites, I’d be able to find others, colours, objects, surfaces, to work with. Of course, working with high quality materials really helps. I feel I couldn’t do without my Winsor & Newton Watercolours (always in tubes), my brushes, Liquitex Professional Acrylic Inks and Fabriano, Arches, or Saunders Waterford hot pressed watercolour paper.
Over the last years, I have experimented a lot with different types of paper, colours, and their interactions. Lately, I have been working a lot with fabrics, which I found to be a whole different world, and quite fascinating. I guess the use of different types of materials, even for tests and deviations, is built into my practice.
Art materials
Josephine: Do you work from a reference? What is your process?
Martha: My work is primarily figurative. I tend to relate to and develop groups of works, through certain ideas/themes/concepts such as personal histories, relationships of co-dependence, subjective and emotional views, and responses to the world. I also explore themes of reverie, loss, and memory. Sometimes it’s personal archives or found imagery that give me a point of departure.
Technically, I develop works through multiple layers of watercolour paint either directly on paper, acetate (monoprinting), or on found, unprimed fabrics. The underlying objective is a subtle sabotage. This could be about the glorious, idealized self, in its complete and coherent version, a family structure or a certain balance. I focus on the fragmentary and the cryptic, and on the fragile dynamic balance between abstraction and representation. I am mostly interested in the coexistence of abstraction with figuration and how they can play off each other.
In my recent work, I mostly focus on the intricacies and dynamics in human relationships and explore the nuances of emotions and the transition from visceral to cerebral. I look into the intricate and co-dependent relationships between family, lovers and friends, placing my protagonists in environments that blend reality, memory, and imagination.
Process: study for a large scale work
Josephine: For monotype do you use water-based or oil-based paints? If oil-based, how do they interact with the watercolour?
Martha: I have quite a particular way to monoprint; I always use Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour Paint in tubes as if they were oils. I like the fact that there is no rush, they actually must dry to be transferred and are easy to clean from the acetate. I create multi-layered works, and this is quite useful; being able to quickly clean and work the next layers.
Having said that, I do plan to experiment with oil-based paints and more traditional intaglio inks.
Fusion, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 60 x 80 cm, 23 x 31 in
Josephine: Do you regularly draw or keep a sketchbook? If so, how does this inform your work?
Martha: A tidy, organized sketchbook that comes in one piece is not for me. I create lots of sketches, but usually on cut-out paper, leftovers from larger paper or ripped-off sketchbook pages. I wish I could keep a sketchbook in order, like a journal, but every time I try, it ends up in bits and pieces. Even though I might make numerous sketches and plans for artworks, they never stay put in a sketchbook. I might then create a collage of many sketches and fragments of works as a starting point for a work.
Mother and Child, 2023
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 30 x 40 cm, 11 x 15 in
Josephine: Have you ever had a period of stagnation in creativity? If so, what helped you overcome it?
Martha: I struggled a bit after completing my undergrad studies in fine art and painting, hence I turned my attention away from painting and into jewellery making, a practice that was, for me at that time, cathartic. Jewellery design and making, which I see as a type of micro-sculpture practice, is really fun.
Playtime, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 110 x 90 cm, 43 x 35 in
Josephine: Are there any specific artists or mentors who have inspired you?
Martha: I have had many different influences throughout the years. In my early, formative years, it would be Rembrandt, Lucian Freud, Marlen Dumas, Jenny Saville, Elizabeth Peyton, and Chantal Joffe to name a few. In terms of mentors, my printmaking tutor has introduced me and helped me to fall in love with printmaking. My time with other artists is super valuable to me, people who sometimes offer, without realising, some sort of soft-mentoring. Spending time with my tribe is deeply inspiring.
Evening in the Garden, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 70 x 100 cm, 27 x 39 in
Josephine: What were you thinking about or exploring at the time you made Dressing Up? What inspired it, and how did it come to be?
Martha: This work was part of a series I started working on recently, on the theme of play, usually depicting children or families. I guess being a mother of two exposes me to plenty of micro episodes of play and interactions. There is something about role play that I find deeply intriguing and, of course, ageless. The theatrical aspect, the nuances, the miniature gestures, the social roles of both adults and children. Dressing Up is an intuitive attempt to capture these gestures. It is also a very conscious, or so I think, attempt to blend reality, memory, and imagination.
In a way, this work can be seen as a moment in a deeper and more long-lasting personal line of inquiry that deals with the intricate and co-dependent relationships between family, lovers, and friends, and tries to look at how this shapes our identities and perceptions of the world.
Woman with Flowers, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 78 x 108 cm, 30 x 42 in
Josephine: Why did this piece feel like the right one to submit?
Martha: I was never fully sure it would be. But I knew I wanted this work to find a place, literally and metaphorically, to be seen, critiqued, exposed. I felt that Jackson’s Art Gallery and the Jackson’s Art Prize, given the quality and identity of works presented over the last 10 years, would be the ideal platform.
Flower Arrangement, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour and household paint on paper, 40 x 55 cm, 15 x 21 in
Josephine: How did it feel to move through the stages in the competition and win Anne Rothenstein’s Choice Award?
Martha: I have to say that I was really impressed by the quality of all the longlisted works, with some of my recent favourite artists being part of that list. It has been an honour to be part of this process and a pure joy to see my work moving through and being acknowledged, all the way to the final stage. Winning the Anne Rothenstein’s Choice Award was very fulfilling and encouraging. Anne Rothenstein is an artist I admire, seeing my work being selected by her was extra unexpected and, of course, deeply rewarding.
Under the Sun, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 100 x 125 cm, 39 x 49 in
Josephine: I was surprised at the scale of this work in person, it was larger than I anticipated! Do you usually work in large format, or was it specific to this piece?
Martha: I have recently started working on a large scale, as I used to many years ago. I enjoy making work in all scales and I feel comfortable moving between different scales; however, I find that quite often larger works have more impact. I really enjoy making them, I feel that they free me up, even though they can be quite challenging to make technically.
Jackson’s Art Prize Exhibition at Bankside Gallery, 2025
Josephine: What are the qualities of watercolour and monotype that you’re drawn to?
Martha: I guess it’s the immediacy and fluidity in watercolour which I really love, plus it’s a very versatile medium. I find it fascinating that it responds differently to varying amounts of water and on surfaces, and this leads to so many unpredictable qualities, visually. After many years of working mainly with water-based media, I can still challenge myself and discover new ways of using them. I like monoprinting as it offers an element of surprise; the image is mirrored once printed, and the marks are often altered. Also, it helps me to be more bold and decisive when painting. Watercolour and monotype both help me grow this element of ‘surprise’ in my works and a sense of apparent randomness, which are important to my process, along with more controlled experiments and explorations on the possibilities of my media.
Art materials
Josephine: Are there any new materials or ideas you’re excited to explore using your prize?
Martha: I am currently experimenting with monoprinting on various fabrics. I have already enjoyed spending the prize on various pigments, watercolours, and stretcher bars. I have also been experimenting with blending my watercolours with Schmincke Aqua-fix, a new medium for me; it literally seals watercolours on any surface, making them water-resistant.
Installation shot, “Reverie” solo show at Rhodes gallery, 2025
Josephine: What’s coming up next for you?
Martha: I have several shows coming up, and I am really excited for each one of them. It is very interesting and useful for my own understanding of my practice and identity as an artist, to see my work as part of a wider show, and next to other works, at times radically different.
I am currently working towards my next solo show, which will include a wide range of works, some large-scale too, on both paper and fabric. So far, despite the pressure, I’ve managed to keep experimenting with my approach and my media, too.
I hope I can keep doing that. I would like to keep on experimenting with both my media and approach, in particular in the ways of abstracting my images.
Further Reading
Meet Eleanor Johnson, Winner of Jackson’s Art Prize 2025
Jackson’s Art Prize 2025 Exhibition at Affordable Art Fair
How We Collaborate With Artists
Expert Advice on Making Your Way as an Artist
Shop Watercolour Painting on jacksonsart.com
The post Martha Zmpounou: Visceral to Cerebral appeared first on Jackson's Art Blog.
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