17/10/2026
We are delighted to have a collection of Tom Speedy's paintings as part of the Affordable Art Fair Battersea. Tom was part of our graduate exhibition earlier this year, and his work has captured the eye
of both our gallery visitors and the wider art world. He is a recipient of the RSA John Kinross Scholarship, shortlisted for the New Blood Emerging Art Prize, and nominated for both the Freelands Foundation Painting Prize and the WSA Painting Prize. Two of his Degree Show paintings were also exhibited at Unit London during Frieze Week 2025. Tom was awarded the The Walter Scott Award at the RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Spring 2026.
His work explores open, ambiguous narratives that reflect emotional states of drifting, separation, and displacement. His paintings combine landscape and figurative storytelling to create a tension between the figure and the world it inhabits – where unrelated places and incidents seem to overlap, entwine, and reconfigure.
Working from fleeting memories and everyday observations – often gathered while travelling – Tom begins with sketching and photography before moving into an intuitive and experimental painting process. Figures engaged in acts of leisure such as fishing, rowing, or water polo reappear inside saturated, water-lit worlds that feel both recognisable and dream-like.
