Gallery Les Bois founder Claire-Julia Hill was shortlisted for Founder of the Year at the 2025 Sustainable Times RISE Awards, recognising leadership that places sustainability at the heart of resilient and innovative business.
Claire-Julia Hill on the RISE Awards shortlist
Sustainable Times announced the shortlist on 30 September 2025. The Founder of the Year category celebrated founders whose businesses combine sustainability with resilience, innovation and responsible growth. Claire-Julia Hill was recognised for founding Gallery Les Bois and embedding environmental responsibility within both its artistic programme and its operations.
Gallery Les Bois and a sustainability-led gallery model
Founded in October 2024, Gallery Les Bois approaches sustainability as one part of a broader curatorial framework. Beauty, conceptual rigour, provenance, condition and the artist’s wider practice remain central to how the gallery assesses work. Across the gallery’s programme, artists explore materials and processes ranging from natural pigments and plant fibres to reclaimed matter and lower-impact methods of production.
Offline, the gallery’s inaugural exhibition in Notting Hill, brought these questions into conversation with artistic materials, making and the beauty of the natural world. It established an approach in which environmental responsibility can support, rather than limit, aesthetic and conceptual ambition.
From the shortlist to the awards evening
The RISE Awards took place at London’s Grand Connaught Rooms on 6 November 2025. Claire-Julia Hill attended as a Founder of the Year nominee; the award was presented to Chinwe Udo-Davis of Instollar Technologies. Sustainable Times published the results on 7 November 2025.
Gallery Les Bois participated in the awards evening and displayed works by Sienna Martz, Steve Foster, Caitlin Heffernan, John Sabraw and Julian Emsley.
Gallery Les Bois perspective
The shortlist recognised leadership and the gallery’s sustainability-led operating model; it was not an assessment of the future financial performance of individual artworks. Collectors should consider every acquisition on its own merits, including beauty, conceptual rigour, provenance, condition and the artist’s wider practice. Some works may be potentially investment-worthy within an individual collection context, but an award or shortlist does not remove the need for careful assessment and appropriate due diligence.
Questions about the RISE Founder of the Year shortlist
What was Claire-Julia Hill shortlisted for?
Claire-Julia Hill was shortlisted for Founder of the Year at the 2025 Sustainable Times RISE Awards.
Who organised the RISE Awards?
The awards were organised by Sustainable Times to recognise businesses, founders and investors contributing to responsible investment and sustainability.
When and where did the RISE Awards take place?
The awards evening took place on 6 November 2025 at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London.
How did Gallery Les Bois participate in the awards evening?
The gallery attended in support of Claire-Julia Hill and displayed works by Sienna Martz, Steve Foster, Caitlin Heffernan, John Sabraw and Julian Emsley.
Explore the gallery’s artists, available artworks, events, collecting guides and advisory services, or contact Gallery Les Bois for a private conversation.
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