Matilda Smyth wins inaugural SWAG Award from Velarde Gallery and Arts University Plymouth

<p dir="ltr">The new annual partnership between artists‑run <strong><a href="https://www.velarde.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Velarde Gallery</a></strong> and Arts University Plymouth champions emerging talent in the South West and builds another professional pipeline to help retain the best creative graduates in the South West.</p> <p dir="ltr">Matilda, who completed her <strong>BA (Hons) Painting, Drawing &amp; Printmaking</strong> degree at Arts University Plymouth this week, was selected on Friday 20 June after the judging panel toured Graduate Shows across the leading arts university. The exhibition remains free to the public until Thursday 26 June.<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">The award secures gallery representation, tailored mentoring and a place in an October 2025 group exhibition in Kingsbridge. Founded in 2023 by artists Matt Velarde and Fi Wallace Velarde, <strong>Velarde Gallery</strong> has rapidly established a reputation for bringing the finest contemporary art to Devon. Through the <strong>SWAG Award</strong>, the gallery will commission a graduating student from Arts University Plymouth each year to develop a body of work for public exhibition and sale, with the founders personally guiding production, curation and audience development to offer a meaningful first platform.</p> <p dir="ltr">This year’s winner impressed the panel with an emotionally resonant practice that maps the fading edges of memory and place through drawing, painting and low‑relief sculpture. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Matilda’s work shows a rare attentiveness to landscape and memory. Her three years in Plymouth have enabled her to find and develop a language and means to visually poeticize her beloved East Anglia. Here by the ocean, with the great Dartmoor behind her, our great city of Plymouth has acted like a catalyst, a touchstone for Matilda to perceive and phrase that longing for the flat lands and dead-end roads, called ‘lokes’, of Norfolk. Her brilliant essay and publication, <em>‘Exploring the emotional and connectedness of the local landscape through the lens of sheltering’</em>, evidenced this remarkable philosophical empathy for landscape in such a young artist. No wonder the Royal Drawing School have offered her a place to start in September,” said <strong>Richard Kenton Webb</strong>, Subject Leader for BA Painting, Drawing &amp; Printmaking at Arts University Plymouth. “Her careful mark‑making offers a stillness that invites the judges and all viewers to look and sense an extraordinary lyrical oneness with place and feeling, again.”<br /></p>

<p>Originally from Norfolk and now based in Great Yarmouth, Matilda is one of only thirty artists accepted onto <strong>The Drawing Year</strong> postgraduate programme at the Royal Drawing School for 2025–26. Recent exhibitions include <em>Dead End Conversations</em> and the <em>Artist’s Publications Exhibition</em>.</p>

<p>See Matilda’s award-winning work in person and explore the next generation of artists and designers in Arts University Plymouth’s <strong>Undergraduate Graduate Shows 2025</strong>, open daily 10am–7pm until Thursday 26 June. Split across Tavistock Place and Studio 11, the shows are a free public celebration of creativity, with work from graduating students across film, animation, photography, painting, fashion, illustration, architecture and more.</p>

<p dir="ltr"><strong>Applications are open for September 2025 entry.</strong> This degree explores drawing, print and painting as distinct yet interrelated forms of creative enquiry. Based in dedicated studios, students benefit from 1:1 support, collaborative projects, industry briefs and exhibitions on and off campus. Join a close-knit community of artists and explore how mark-making can be both personal and a powerful force for change.</p> <p><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/ba-hons-painting-drawing-printmaking"><strong>Find out more about BA (Hons) Painting, Drawing &amp; Printmaking online.</strong></a></p>