12 year old wins Young RA award for portrait of Benjamin Zephaniah

Prepare to be blown away. This portrait of the poet and campaigner Benjamin Zephaniah was created by a 12-year-old. Yesterday, it was announced that the portrait, In Memory of Zephaniah – created by a student called Izaan – won the Royal Academy of Arts 2024 Young Artists’ Summer Show People’s Choice Awards. Made with soft pastels on paper, the drawing is a brilliant rendition of Zephaniah’s likeness, but – as one commenter on the RA’s Instagram page said – it also perfectly captures the late poet’s “essence” too.

Across June and August the portrait was featured in the RA’s iconic annual Summer Show, after being selected from thousands of entries for a spot on the walls. The show (which this year featured 1,710 works) is renowned for platforming well-known and emerging artists side by side, often giving individuals their first gallery showing.

Zephaniah passed away in December 2023, aged 65. He was well known and loved for his contributions to the dub-poetry genre, and was instrumental in raising awareness of racism in Britain and the country’s colonial legacy. Izaan told the RA: “I have created this piece in the memory of Benjamin Zephaniah as we have been learning about him in school. I am inspired by his poem The British as there is a lot of diversity in Britain and everybody should be respected.”

Inspiration from Lucy Marshall.