Just off the plane and back in town after making art history, local artist Ros Koch tells of her “pinch-me” moments after exhibiting her work in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The British-born, Stellenbosch-based artist started her professional career a decade ago after leaving her part-time law career and work as farm manager.

The choice paid off as Koch was the only African-artist chosen by the world renowned gallery for the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026.

The self-taught painter joined the local Stables Art Studio, setting her on the path to making art her full-time job.

“Cathy Milner took a group of us by the hand. She stopped me from going to university to study art and, along with three others, we had a Friday art club where we were allowed to understand ourselves as artists.”

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Tenacity pays off

Along with the classes to develop visual literacy, Koch took every opportunity to see the work of the old masters in person. Visits to art shows, galleries and engaging with others fed her love and creativity.

But she’s frank about the challenges that comes along with being a self-represented, independent artist. “I was knocking on doors and it wasn’t necessarily a welcoming space. So I thought to myself, ‘I’ll show you’,” she quips.

Koch’s tenacity paid off and she has since had works exhibited at The Artists’ Gallery in Cape Town, Rust-en-Vrede Gallery in Durbanville, Tintswalo Atlantic in Hout Bay, as well as a solo exhibition at the Liebrecht Gallery in Somerset West.

Koch studied law at Oxford University but found her credentials weren’t recognised after emigrating to South Africa in the 1990s. Despite the various hurdles, she continued her law studies at UCT and landed part-time legal work.

Life changes

While living in a Cape Town flat, with her second daughter on the way, Koch told her husband, Peter, it was time to move somewhere with a garden.

A move to Simondium followed, where Koch juggled motherhood, being a wife, the family farm, and her work in law. As the nearest English schools were in Stellenbosch, the family relocated to where Koch has cultivated deep roots.

She attributes her community work to feeding her creative work. In Kayamandi she works with local organisations and she also volunteered at the then Kayamandi parkrun.

“The children there really inspired the early part of my artistic career. I facilitated art lessons with an organisation; from that, I was granted permission to use some of the photographs I took of them.”

However, it was Koch’s own daughter who brought her work to the world stage.

Asked if she knew “The Age of Adolescence” would be a winner, Koch says: “I didn’t necessarily think it was a winner in a competition, but I felt like it’s a winner for me – a winner in my heart. It exemplifies everything I’m passionate about and I really kind of like that.”

Slog to get abroad

Koch first entered the portrait of her middle child to the South African Portrait Awards, but it was after fan-girling over fine art painter Ashley Ogilvy’s ”Call me Albie” that the journey to London began.

She visited the National Portrait Gallery where she saw Ogilvy’s painting of activist and former Constitutional Court judge, Albie Sachs, in person.

So moved was Koch, that she reached out to Ogilvy, who urged her to enter her own work for the exhibition. “I was speechless. I thought, if she thinks I may be good enough, I should really enter.”

After submitting a digital version of “The Age of Adolescence” last December, Koch was informed she has advanced to the first round of the competition. She was asked to send the original 250 x 250 mm canvas to England.

Realising customs could pose a problem when using a local courier service, Koch scrambled to get the painting to the gallery.

“I was phoning around, with my mates and book club. I even phoned up a pilot friend to ask if he was possibly flying from Cape Town to London that week; but he wasn’t.”

After her initial plans failed, a work associate of Peter, who was travelling to England that evening, agreed to deliver the piece – after much convincing, help from her eldest daughter, and a dent to the family car.

Rubbing shoulders

That made the selection as one of the 52 exhibited works all the more sweet.

“To be in the room is the privilege in and of itself,” she says. “There’s my work hanging alongside [pieces by] my idols and suddenly they walk in and view my painting. I’m showing alongside artists like Francis Featherstone – someone I’ve followed for ages and she’s brilliant! It’s amazing, because I was expecting them to maybe be a bit aloof but they were so casual and as happy as I was to be there.”

The technique for the portrait was inspired by a self-portrait of a young Rembrandt.

Koch used the same technique of Chiaroscuro (contrast) as well as scrapping away the paint rather than adding to the picture.

“There is an intensity to the image; the artist invites you in with that intensity but instead of a spotlight on her face, the spotlight was behind her. So you had this glow, this aura which can be read in very many ways.”

The exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will hang until 7 October before going on tour throughout the UK.

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