Teen lockdown artist to exhibit at Royal Academy of Arts

A teenager who took up painting during lockdown is to display her work at a prestigious art gallery in London.

When schools closed in March 2020, Makenzy Beard, 14, from Swansea started painting on canvasses in her garden shed.

A portrait of her neighbour, Gower farmer, John Tucker, will go on display at the Young Artists' Summer Show during July and August at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Makenzy, a pupil at Bishopston Comprehensive School, said: "I had some free time on my hands and my mum used to love to paint so we had paints and canvasses and brushes. I thought 'why not give it a try' and it escalated from there.

"I've always loved creative things but up until that point that was my first time painting portraits."

Using photographs of people to help her create the portraits, it can take many hours for Makenzy to complete one.

Makenzie estimates it took about 20 hours to complete the portrait of John during a three-week period.

"I was very busy at the time I decided to do this one, so I was taking five minutes before school, an hour after school before sport. It was all broken down, I never spent one long extended period of time on it", she said.

"John is a wonderful person and has a really lovely, kind and friendly demeanour," said Makenzy.

"I thought, 'he's local and goes about his business every day and he'd be a wonderful person to paint'.

"I used a photograph because he's far too busy to be sitting down for hours. So one evening there was some lovely light and I went and snapped a couple of photographs and used those."

Having seen his portrait in person, Mr Tucker said: "I didn't expect to see what I did see in the end. It's absolutely brilliant. It's like a photograph.

"I was standing on the yard at the time bringing some hay nets down and she just stopped me and asked me if she could take a photograph and that was it. My family say it's exactly like me.

"For her age she's a very talented young lady."

A photograph of the portrait has been shared and liked thousands of times on social media after it was posted by her school's Twitter account.

After seeing the response to her work being shared publicly online, Makenzy said: "It's a bit overwhelming to be honest because I've never been someone who has had much contact with social media.

"But seeing people from all over the world commenting on it and talking about the light, the tones, and the texture, is just really wonderful for me."

Her portrait of Mr Tucker was the first she had entered for a competition. It will go on display at the Royal Academy from 13 July until 8 August.

But since being back in school full-time Makenzy said she does not have as much time to paint.

Playing hockey for Wales is also another commitment which makes it difficult to spend too much time on her art work.

"I'm not sure what I want to do in the future yet," she said.

"I enjoy too many things but I'd really love to continue with art, I really enjoy it. I'm really passionate about school and sport too. I'd like to see art in my future as well as many other things."

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