The Cambridgeshire Plein Air Artist of The Year Judging Panel

Ben MacGregor is a self-taught artist based in London. He has been recognised for his landscape painting – particularly through the Sky Arts Landscape of the Year competition. He first entered with his painting Bluebells in 2021, making it to the semi-finals. He has continued to compete, and was most recently named the winner of the 2025 series.

Born in 1979, he grew up in Surrey and worked as a TV graphic designer for five years from 1999 before travelling to Nigeria in 2007 to work in maritime security. It was a role that took him to remote locations across the country, and on to other West African countries including Sierra Leone, Ghana and Ivory Coast. Returning to London in 2015 and contemplating his next steps, he rediscovered a childhood love of painting.

Ben is interested in abstraction as a way to break the conventional rules of painting and push boundaries. Using traditional oil paint and a textural brush style for a painterly take on mark making, this is backed up with more contemporary techniques too.

Holly Kavanagh is Senior Associate Director at Kettle’s Yard and works across both Kettle’s Yard and the Cambridge University Development and Alumni Relations office. Holly has previously worked at the The National Trust, The Natural History Museum, Cambridge Past, Present & Future and English Heritage.

At the Natural History Museum, Holly secured major gifts and legacy pledges to support exhibitions, programming and research.

More recently, as the Guardians & Legacies Manager for English Heritage, Holly developed strategies to uplift income for a variety of capital projects, heritage skills apprenticeships and endowment campaigns.

Holly is particularly passionate about removing barriers to accessing the arts.

Luke Bodalbhai is a specialist in the Fine Art department at Cheffins, based in Cambridge.

Luke has a particular interest in the development of naturalistic landscape painting, from 17th century Dutch artists to the East Anglian en plein air painters who they later inspired, notably the Norwich School, John Constable and Edward Seago.

Luke studied History at the University of Bristol where his research into the role of visual imagery in 16th century Europe first inspired him to pursue a career handling antique art. He has worked in the auction world for fifteen years and overseen various high-profile sales including two paintings by Sir Winston Churchill, another en plein air painter, for over half a million pounds.

Aside from landscape painting, he also specialises in historical portraiture, the Dutch Golden Age, Venetian art, and the Victorian painter William Powell Frith.

Confirmation of our judge from Anglia Ruskin School of Art will be confirmed later this month

Confirmation of our 5th and final judge will be revealed in the next week.