[PHOTO: Caroline Elizabeth Gormley outside The Art Department, 9-11 Causeyside Street, Paisley, holding her new large-scale painting — a hyperrealistic still life of an overstuffed holdall spilling its contents onto a bed sheet]
Paisley artist Caroline Elizabeth Gormley — best known locally as the co-founder of the Made in Paisley art studio on the High Street — has handed in her latest large-scale canvas to The Art Department, Paisley ahead of this year's Big Art Show.
Posting a photo of herself outside the gallery's Causeyside Street premises holding the finished piece, Caroline wrote: "Hand in done, The Art Department, Paisley… thanks Karen for helping me get it there." The post quickly picked up warm reactions from followers, several of whom were charmed by the painting's playful, hyperrealistic detail.
The submission comes as The Art Department gears up for the Big Art Show 2026, one of Scotland's largest open-entry art exhibitions. First launched in 2022, the show has grown fast — the 2025 edition alone featured more than 1,000 works across painting, drawing, photography, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, mixed media, installation, digital, film, video and sound. This year's edition runs from 29 August to 14 November at the gallery, with prizes on offer and upwards of 15,000 visitors expected. The call for entries has now closed, with the selection panel and volunteer team moving on to hanging the show; the venue's Facebook page has been putting out a call for volunteers to help with "the big hang" over the coming weeks.
Caroline co-founded Made in Paisley with her partner Sandy Guy in 2018, turning an empty High Street unit into a working studio and gallery that now runs art classes for dozens of children and adults each week. Her own large-scale paintings typically take around a year to complete.
The full list of participating artists and selected works for Big Art Show 2026 will be published at bigartshow2026.artcall.org.