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Public Open Exhibition 2025

17 July – 5 September 2025

The 2025 Public Open Exhibition has attracted disabled contemporary visual artists across the UK. Selected pieces have been shortlisted by a panel of industry professionals to be part of the exhibition at LEVEL Centre over the summer, running from 17 July-5 September.

The standard of submissions was outstanding, showcasing a broad range of art styles and techniques, with work produced both by and for learning disabled, neurodivergent, and disabled artists. The panel has selected two pieces to win first and second prize in the 18 and Over category, along with winners in the 12-17 and 7-11 categories. The winners were announced at 12 noon on 17 July – scroll down to find out more!

But who will win the People’s Choice Award? You can vote for your favourite artwork below, or visit the centre to see the exhibition in person and vote during your visit. The work with the most votes will win a fantastic bundle of art supplies from our generous sponsor Turners Arts Supplies. Voting opens 17 July until 5pm on 5 September.

18 and Over Category

A painting showing a woman laid in a hospital bed with her eyes closed, she is asleep. She wears a light green hospital gown and has a blue mouth covering on her mouth. The bed has high sides to stop her falling out and she has a blue pillow behind her head. Around the bed are four nurses wearing blue scrubs and hats and wearing face coverings. They are looking at the woman and the bed and are clearly busy caring for her and monitoring her vital signs. Above the woman in bed there are bright splatters of colour that lead down to her. One becomes a medicine bottle at the bottom which is then connected to the woman.

First Place:
‘Invisible Faces’ (digital painting)
by Emma Major

Emma Major is a blind wheelchair user, poet, author and artist. Emma lost almost all of her eye sight, overnight, in 2015 and has been getting progressively more disabled ever since. Emma never knows exactly what will emerge in her paintings but she shares them and her poems online, encouraging others to explore their creativity.

In February 2025 Emma developed sepsis that couldn’t be controlled and was admitted to ICU. She was cared for by a team of nurses and doctors who saved her life.
‘Invisible Faces’ reflects how being in ICU was a strange mix of traumatic and wonderfully caring all at the same time. The painting is a way of processing the experience emotionally and celebrating the NHS. A poem accompanies the piece:

Invisible faces hover wordlessly
Tender in their watch
Near then far away
Unseen hands cradle my fragility
Delicate in their touch
Nudges outside time
A soft touch pulses hope
I sense a faith unspoken
A promise whispered silently
Though they are faceless
Their care is warmth wrapped tight
Holding my fraying seams together
I voyaged beyond my fragile frame
Forever grateful
For hands I didn’t always see

Emma says: “It is an honour to be chosen as the first place winner of the LEVEL Public Open Exhibition 2025. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my experience of being cared for by the NHS and celebrate the “Invisible Faces” who saved my life. Creating art and poetry is an essential element of living well with my disabilities and chronic illnesses; releasing and processing my emotions whilst also providing a window into the reality of my life. I am almost entirely blind now so I paint digitally on the iPad with huge magnification; sometimes as large as one pixel of the painting on the screen at a time. I hope that this painting will raise awareness of living with complex health and disability whilst celebrating the vibrant life we can all lead when access is provided. Thank you again to the LEVEL team for giving me and the other artists in the exhibition a place to shine brightly.”

“I always think great art is meant to move you and I was deeply moved by Emma’s powerful autobiographical work. It was fascinating to hear Emma’s unique working method of creating the painting digitally on the iPad with magnification, often one pixel at a time. For me Emma was a clear winner and I thank her for sharing her visually beautiful art, entwined with her deeply personal experiences as a Disabled woman, an experience which is often wrongly overlooked within society. Congratulations Emma!”

Corinne

Disabled Artist and Photographer

A medium sized oil painting portrait of the disability rights campaigner Adam Person, looking relaxed and placid in a large ornate red velvet armchair, sporting a Batman t-shirt.

Second Place:
‘Portrait Of Adam Pearson’ (oil on canvas)
by Joel Simon

Joel Simon was born in Belgium where he studied Fine Art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Liège, before living in the USA and England. He eventually settled in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which became his home and inspiration behind the urban settings of many of his paintings. His paintings reveal the beauty and depth of everyday private moments.

This portrait features a nearly full body composition of the young actor, presenter and disability rights campaigner Adam Pearson.

Joel says: “I am absolutely delighted that my oil portrait of the disability rights campaigner Adam Pearson has won second prize! I met Adam in London and arranged a portrait session from which this painting was executed.As a disabled artist, I was particularly interested in painting Adam after watching his Channel 4 documentary Adam Pearson: Freak Show, in which he discusses the effect his severe disability has on the people around him. He’s a personal hero of mine.”

“A wonderfully warm and personable portrait. Adam sits comfortably in his chair, the quiet glow of colour pulling you into a moment of serene connection.”

Dr. Annie Watson

Deputy Head of Department for Design and Digital Arts, Nottingham Trent University School of Art & Design

12-17 Category

The picture has fresh green grass in the bottom third and a huge rainbow spreading over the top with rain falling on the grass.

Winner:
‘Rainbow’ (Paint stick on paper)
by Billy

Billy loves to express himself through drawing and regularly attends drawing club at school. Billy finds drawing and chatting with his friends a great way to spend his free time and have a lot of laughs.

This picture represents a happy day spent with people you love.

“It was an absolute delight to discover Billy’s piece ‘Rainbow’. A gorgeous depiction of a day spent
in nature, with loved ones. Billy is certainly a talented artist, whose art radiates happiness. I hope
he continues to create and share his beautiful art with the world. Congratulations Billy!”

Corinne

Disabled Artist and Photographer

7-11 Category

This is a bold black line drawing of a tractor, you can see the large wheel to the left and a small wheel to the right. The grill is really clear in the centre of the image.

Winner:
‘Tractor’ (Felt tip on paper)
by Llan

Llan’s school told us that Llan is one of the kindest members of drawing club, always drawing pictures to give to family as gifts. Llan draws collaboratively with friends and often draws for them too.

Llan loves to draw vehicles and especially tractors.

“This bold striking picture of a tractor is excellent. There are great observational skills evident here – simply and brilliantly done!”

Dr. Annie Watson

Deputy Head of Department for Design and Digital Arts, Nottingham Trent University School of Art & Design

People’s Choice Award

Thank you to everyone who voted for their favourite piece in The People’s Choice Award, sponsored by Turners Arts Supplies!

Voting is now closed but you can still view all the work from our Public Open Exhibition 2025 below.

This is a circular painting on canvas, depicting a small human form reaching to touch the hanging branch of a tree. The figure is shown from behind. Long Hair and body shape suggest female but the figure is roughly drawn, more than a stick man, less resolved than a cartoon. Their legs look unsteady. You cannot tell the figure’s age but you might feel their vulnerability, and their quest for solace. The focal point echoes Michelangelo’s famous fingertip touch between God and Man. A moment of connection. This painting is 46 cm in diameter. The marks are loose and impressionistic. In places the paint has been applied thickly onto the canvas. The figure stands on a path which stretches ahead to a pale uncertain destination. To either side, above, and below, is a tangle of lush foliage. Trunks, branches, and a profusion of marks in an varied greens, golds and yellows encircle the figure. Some of the paint is iridescent, giving an idea of sunlight glancing between leaves. You can also find tiny splashes of purple which might be wildflowers or a reference to the colour associated with fibromyalgia, a condition from which the artist suffers.

People’s Choice Award 2025 winner:
‘Walking with Trees’ (acrylic paint and pen on stretched canvas)
by Juli Fejer

Juli Fejer paints the ordinary but awesome trees she encounters in her everyday life. Her work is rooted in her personal journey from isolated invalid to gallery artist. She is a passionate advocate of mindfulness and the benefits of walking in woodland, and uses her art to communicate themes of hope and metamorphosis. Juli works in water-based paint and pen on paper and canvas. She sketches en plein air and paints in the studio. Her iPad is an integral part of her practice.

Juli takes inspiration from the wild spaces she encounters in her day-to-day life, from London parks to Suffolk water meadows. While Fejer loves to paint the landscape for its own sake, she also uses landscape to explore emotions and tell stories. Decay and regeneration are recurring themes. Her current series of paintings explores the effects of grief on her perception of familiar places, following the loss of her beloved younger brother in 2024.

Juli is a self-taught painter. After decades of pain and depression, in 2019 she was encouraged to draw by therapists at her local hospital. What started as a hobby became a passion as she reconnected with a childhood love of the visual arts. Juli is an advocate for art as therapy and in 2024 she was artist in residence for the charity A Space Between, which provides mindful colouring resources for hospitals.

Juli says: “I’m delighted and thrilled to be the People’s Choice winner. I began painting seven years ago as a distraction from chronic pain and fibromyalgia. It has changed my life, giving me opportunities I could never have imagined. I’m so grateful to have had the chance to share my work with visitors to LEVEL Centre, and through the online exhibition. And I’m really looking forward to receiving the lovely prize.”