Brendan Fitzpatrick: Contemporary Portrait Painting and Fine Art

Brendan Fitzpatrick is a figurative portrait painter working between Hong Kong and London, known for painting directly from life using the sight-size method. Trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal Drawing School, he later apprenticed at Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, where he was invited to teach—experience that underpins his meticulous, Old Master-informed approach. In 2018 he won the Portrait Prize at the Royal Ulster Academy, recognition that helped cement his reputation among collectors seeking contemporary realism grounded in classical technique. (brendanfitzpatrickart.com) Fitzpatrick’s canvases balance historical influence and present-day psychology: he cites Velazquez and Rembrandt among touchstones, yet his sitters and settings are unmistakably of now. Working from a light-filled studio in Chai Wan on Hong Kong Island, he emphasizes extended, conversational sittings so that gesture, atmosphere, and narrative surface over time rather than in a single photographic instant. (voguehk.com) Alongside private commissions, Fitzpatrick has produced institutional work, including a 2022 project painting 31 current and former deans for the LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He continues to accept commissions and appointments through his studios in Chai Wan (Hong Kong) and Chelsea, London. Collectors and patrons engage him for portraits that aim less at likeness alone than at character and presence rendered with classical structure and contemporary sensitivity. (brendanfitzpatrickart.com)