A FORMER Dumbarton Academy pupil has won two top awards for his eye-catching university artwork.

Lewis Deeney, an art student at the University of Dundee, was nearing the end of his degree course when the pandemic hit in the spring.

He was forced to complete the biggest assignment for his course from his home as the initial coronavirus lockdown closed universities and colleges across Scotland.

But the paintings he created for his degree show at the university’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design were exhibited online - and won him the Sir James Guthrie Orchar Memorial Award and the Farquhar Reid Trust Prize, as well as earning him a first class degree.

He told the Reporter: “As an art student the degree show is supposed to be your most ambitious project yet, the culmination of four years of work, which is unrealistic to complete without a studio to complete it and space to display it.

“With the degree show being moved online, I was thankful that I had a productive year and already had other completed works I could show.”

Lewis is predominantly a painter who uses laser techniques to cut and rearrange his abstract artwork into interlocking geometric forms.

Describing his work, the 26-year-old said: “When gazing into a mirror, you see the reflection of your own face, the material ‘you’ reflecting back.

“Continuing with this analogy, when you look into the painting, what you are seeing - beyond simply the material artwork - is your own conscious experience, the immaterial ‘you’ reflecting back.”

Lewis was also one of eight artists selected from across the UK for the Freelands Painting Prize. His work, “Our Equilibrium”, is currently on show at the Freelands Gallery in London.

The art student said: “It’s surreal and exciting, However, it is so strange that I haven’t been able to visit it yet.”

Lewis is now studying for a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Art and Humanities at Duncan of Jordanstone, after winning the William S Phillips Award which covers his tuition fees and provides a living cost bursary.

The award winner is keen to encourage others from Dumbarton and the Vale to get into the art world.

“Our desire to create is the very thing that makes us who we are,” he said.

“It’s what makes us human. We are all creative.”

He is now represented by New Blood Art, a boutique online art gallery, specialising in emerging artists.

He also has plans to showcase his work, lockdown restrictions permitting, at two exhibitions being held in Glasgow during December.

To check out his artwork visit lewisdeeney.co.uk or his Instagram @lewisdeeney.