Alex Boardman

Alex F Boardman is a figurative painter based in Cromer, on the north Norfolk coast, known for small oil-on-board paintings of the Norfolk coastline and for her portraits. Born in Colchester in 1965 and, in her own words, an out and proud "Essex Girl", she trained at Southend College of Technology and Norwich School of Art, and won a bursary to study painting in Florence in 1985.

She has twice exhibited in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London (1990 and 1991), and was shortlisted for first prize at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in 1985. Writing in The Observer, the critic William Feaver remarked on the "notable small portraits by Alex Boardman". Recent exhibitions include the Society of Women Artists at the Mall Galleries (2023 and 2024), Portrait of Us at The Bank Gallery, Eye (2024), and the Sir John Hurt Art Prize exhibition at the Holt Festival (2023). In 2026 she was shortlisted in two categories of the Holt Art Awards, the Sir John Hurt Art Prize and the Helen Herbert Portrait Award.

She opens her studio each year for North Norfolk Open Studios.