Erwood Station Craft Centre has announced it’s Art Competition for 2025!

Erwood Station Craft Centre is a unique gift shop and art gallery, with a coffee shop housed within a refurbished train station. Taken over in 2023, Steve, Jenny & Stacey have breathed a breath of fresh air into the well-known beauty spot near Builth Wells in Powys.

In 2024 Erwood Station held an art competition based on the format seen on the popular television programme as shown on Sky Arts.

Erwood Station’s ‘Portrait Artist of the Year 2024’ was held both inside and on the grounds of the Station and consisted of 5 heats and a final. Each heat consisted of 5 contestants all competing against a 4-hour time frame to produce a piece of artwork of a ‘Guest Sitter’. These pieces were then judged by three local artists and a winner of the heat would make it through to the final, where they competed again for a chance to win the overall competition and be crowned Erwood Station’s very first ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’.

"The competition proved very successful and created a lot of buzz and interest with each heat and the thrilling final. Throughout the year, we were continually asked whether it would become an annual event, and so back by popular demand, for 2025, Erwood will proudly be holding ‘Landscape Artist of the Year 2025’, said events manager Stacey Alba.

Beginning on Saturday 3rd May, the first of now 4 heats will be held under the same 4-hour time period, but this time the contestants will be faced with a Landscape challenge instead.

A runner-up and a winner of the heat will be selected, and both will have to compete again for a chance to win the overall prize.

The crowned winner will be winning a prize pot of a whopping £250, along with an opportunity to hold their own exclusive art exhibition in Erwood’s gallery in 2026.

With the competition now being Landscape, there will be much more of an opportunity for people to come and watch the heats and follow along the competition in its entirety, supporting their favourite contestants every step of the way.

On paper, this is an art competition with a winner crowned at the end of the year, but more importantly the purpose of Erwood Station holding such events is to ultimately encourage, embolden, and support budding artists to grow their skills and develop themselves both in confidence and ability. They will have judges on hand with each heat ready to give their constructive advice and encouragement where necessary, and to hopefully inspire the contestant to push themselves and achieve so much more than they previously thought possible.

Erwood Station will be documenting each heat of the competition with photos and videos and keeping the progress of the competition up to date on their social media, but as they hope to grow the competition year on year and hope to inspire many more people to trust themselves and their instincts when it comes to their own creativity and artistic talent, they really need the support in getting the message of the competition out there.

The hope is that the competition will spark creativity and imagination in the local community.

Below are all of the relevant dates of the competition and should prove to be a great day out for all of the family.