The Art Department, Paisley Ltd is celebrating the fifth edition of Big Art Show, one of the largest visual art exhibitions in the UK, which takes place from 29th August – 14th November 2026. This year's show features over 1000 works and the popular Featured Artists programme is back. Artworks appearing this year are in many mediums including painting, drawing, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, photography and mixed media.
This year's featured artists are Ellie Muir; Jamie Munro; Mark T. Shepheard; Matthew Smith; Maree Hughes and Vertigo Artography. They will each show up to 12 artworks in the show. The charity has also announced a funding award of £75,000 from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Steven Thomson, Creative Director, Big Art Show, said: “The Art Department celebrates its largest funding award from Creative Scotland in over ten years, which we feel is a real endorsement of all the hard work in building a new, permanent gallery for Paisley with a year-round programme and a circular economy of creative and connected communities. BIG celebrations for us with the first anniversary of the opening of our new premises, 2-year funding from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, continued investment in Paisley's cultural legacy and the Big Art Show is back for a fifth year!
Karen Dick, Head of Place, Partnerships and Communities at Creative Scotland said: “The Big Art Show is a celebration and culmination of the incredible work of The Art Department over the past 10 years. Following the exciting new refurbishment of their base in the heart of Paisley Town Centre and significant funding from The National Lottery, The Art Department are expertly placed to support the communities that live and work in the local area.
Rowena Comrie, Director, The Art Department, Paisley Ltd, said: “This funding award has enabled a sustainable period ahead for The Art Department, recognising their invaluable offering to the creative population of Paisley and beyond. It is incredibly life enhancing, enabling us to continue with our programme of workshops and exhibitions, including of course, the Big Art Show which has become an exciting and important annual event. The contribution that creative activity makes to our well-being has been proven, and the award is a positive reflection of that from Creative Scotland.”
Eoghann MacColla, Director, The Art Department Paisley, Ltd, said: “The support from Creative Scotland's Open Fund is so valuable and indeed welcome. It is terrific for The Art Department to be recognised by a national funder like Creative Scotland. This support means we can continue to reach many through participation and appreciation of the arts and creativity. Paisley (and Renfrewshire) can see the benefits the charity brings to so many, whether through bespoke workshops and classes as well as the annual Big Art Show that reaches everyone and brightens town centre and touches so many, both as participants and audience.”
A series of creative learning workshops will run alongside the Autumn show. Led by artists, they include workshops in painting, drawing, pottery, glass art, printmaking, textiles and sewing. Book here: art-department.org/workshops
Organisers have secured prizes for this year's edition, which will be awarded at the launch party on Saturday 29th August.
The Art Department Paisley, Ltd Prize – top prize for best in show
Scottish Society of Artist's Prize
The Hazlitt Apartments Prize
Made in Paisley Prize
Cass Art Prize
The Carolyn Kyle-Chittick Pretty in Pink Prize
Paisley First Prize
The Mill Magazine Prize
The Ramsden Framing Co. Photography Prize
The Art Department are grateful to funders: The National Lottery through Creative Scotland; Renfrewshire Council Cultural Organisation Fund and Renfrewshire Health and Wellbeing.
Each year, the Big Art Show posters are much sought after, and this year's five poster designs feature images by former Big Art Show prizewinners, Liam McGrady with his entry, Senbon Torii; Emma Smyth's Potting Shed; new work by Steve Slater called Falling Water, Falling Light; Rainfire Reverie by Sumit Mohapatra and a wonderfully relaxed and confident portrait of David by Featured Artist, Jamie Munro. These limited-edition posters are available to purchase at the show.
Featured Artists' Programme - Biographies
Ellie Muir
Ellie Muir is a painter and visual artist born and raised in Paisley. She is currently in the final year of her fine art degree in Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art.
Ellie is a practice-based painter working with oil on canvas. Her practice revolves around human connection. She recreates or depicts everyday scenes from her own life. Her work aims to give value to the mundane or the everyday. She uses photograph references of friends and family as a starting point for her work. Because she uses photography, she can capture moments of movement and play in her paintings. Her aim is to connect people to the paintings through memories of their own life.
She has previously exhibited work in the Big Art Show and has also exhibited in group shows in Glasgow. Her work has also been published in Divide Magazine, an international visual art magazine.
In this series of works, she explores using a solid red underpainting. She then works with oil in one layer intentionally leaving gaps to expose the red underpainting. These gaps are a link to the themes of memory that she explores in her work. @elliemuir_art
Jamie Munro
Paintings, pictures, memories. Lines, marks and expressions. Jamie's art is a personal meditation. He aims to feel human nature and how it's shared between artist, subject and viewer. You may not know the story, but the hope is you will sense it.
Obsessed with the magic trick of drawing and painting since he was small, Jamie feels lucky to explore it for pure enjoyment. Based in Renfrew, he works mainly in oils to represent family stories, fleeting moments and the beauty close by.
Jamie finds that making and viewing art helps to calm and focus his thoughts, a form of mindfulness. He encourages everyone to give it a go for that reason alone and never mind about the results.
A self-taught artist practicing in his spare time, Jamie has gradually developed an interest in figurative painting. He's inspired by artists past and present who conjure life from a few well-placed brushstrokes. Artists such as John Singer Sargent and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Jamie has exhibited in the Big Art show for the past few years and completed commissions for friends and family.
This group of paintings (produced especially for the show in 2026) is a concept-album on the theme of “universal not personal”. The aim was to take the source material of family and personal photographs and use real emotion to bring them to life on canvas. If the work resonates with you, he'd be delighted to hear your thoughts.
Maree Hughes
Maree Hughes is an Ayrshire-based painter whose practice is rooted in drawing, observation and painting. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, she has exhibited widely throughout Scotland, including the Society of Scottish Artists, Paisley Art Institute and the Royal Scottish Academy. Her work has received recognition through awards including the Future Paisley Prize, Big Art Show, Paisley; Greyfriars art award, Society of Scottish artists; Millers Award, Paisley Art Institute and 2nd Prize in the Derwent Art Prize.
“I am a figurative painter also inspired by Scottish landscapes, Ayrshire landmarks and folklore. As I grow older, I have become more aware of how deeply nature, place, and motherhood have shaped both myself and my creative practice. This has influenced the way I see connection, memory, and belonging within the natural world.”
Mark T. Shepheard
Mark T. Shepheard received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Following graduation, he pursued successful careers in metalsmithing, interior design, and hairdressing before retiring from those professions. Throughout each stage of his career, he maintained a dedicated studio practice, continuing to draw, paint, and create prints.
Shepheard exhibited extensively in local galleries throughout Virginia and has work in corporate collections as well as a museum collection in the United States. In 2025, he relocated to Scotland with his husband after nearly twenty years of visiting the country with an art travel group.
Since moving to Scotland, Shepheard has exhibited twice at The Art Department and in several Ayrshire galleries. He is an active member of local life-drawing groups and continues to expand his printmaking practice through screen printing at Glasgow Print Studio. His work reflects a lifelong commitment to observation, craftsmanship, and creative exploration across multiple media.
Matthew Smith
Matthew was born in Lancashire in 1973 and studied Philosophy at University. Since then, Matthew has worked in various social care and mental health services in Glasgow and Paisley and has made his home there. He enjoyed art at primary and secondary school, but his teachers steered him away from taking it further. In the intervening years he barely painted at all, but in 2018, he happened to walk by the newly opened Made in Paisley, and on a whim, he popped in for a nosy around. It was great learning from Caroline and Sandy in the couple of years he attended there. Without their excellent venture on the high street, he probably wouldn't have picked up his brushes again.
Matthew paints or draws when he can. He fits it in around work, family, volunteering, and walking his dog. Sometimes he uses acrylics, sometimes oils. Hills are something of a theme. He has completed the Munros, and he is slowly working his way through the Corbetts. Perhaps he'll finish the Wainwrights sometime next year.
Matthew also enjoys nature and conservation - during the Covid years he co-founded the Friends of Jenny's Well, and is often found attacking Himalayan Balsam or planting wildflowers at this excellent nature reserve in Paisley, as well as being involved in Paisley Natural History Society. So, this is another theme in his artistic efforts. And then there's Badgers. A favourite thing is to sit quietly in some dusky woods and watch badgers going about their badgery business. They get an undeserved bad press, beleaguered on all sides by road traffic, housing development, and persecution by humanoids. He sometimes does a bit of badger surveying for the excellent Scottish Badgers charity and urge you to look them up. Hence the featured badgers. Matthew love badgers.
Vertigo Artography
Vertigo Artography is an innovative creative duo/art studio proudly based in Paisley. They create original thought-provoking surreal collage art using multiple artistic mediums, whether it be their own photography, mixed media or sculpture using re purposed / recycled materials.
For Vertigo Artography, art is not just a visual delight but a powerful tool for change and awareness. Their original creations delve into pressing environmental concerns, telling stories of nature's beauty and fragility and communicating the impact of human actions. Vertigo Artography believes that art has the potential to ignite conversations, foster a deeper understanding of sustainability and highlight and encourage conscious choices. The full range of their growing collection can be viewed at www.vertigoartography.com and via https://www.instagram.com/vertigo.Artography/
Issued by The Art Department. Please contact: Lisa Watt on 07903 206615 or email marketing@art-department.org