Swansea’s Makenzy Beard features in Portrait Artist of the Year

After completing several portraits against the clock, the winner of the competition on SkyArts gets a £10,000 commission to paint British actor and musician Damian Lewis for the National Portrait Gallery.

“I suppose I wanted to give it a go. I’ve watched the show and it seemed like a challenge, so I thought why not,” Beard said.

Since displaying one of her first portraits at the Royal Academy Summer Show in 2021, she has sold paintings for thousands of pounds and raised more than £45,000 for charitable causes.

“I don’t think I had time to reflect much on what I thought of the work because I was having a lot of opinions from other people.