Johnny Rotten is Wiltshire's favourite pop star (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Johnny Rotten is Wiltshire's favourite pop star

10:22am Friday 9th January 2009 in Devizes By Rachel Allen

A portrait of Sex Pistols frontman Jonny Rotten has been chosen by the public as their favourite artwork in the first Open exhibition staged at The Pound arts centre in Corsham.

Artist Paul Cummings was presented with a cheque for £100 by The Pound artistic director Nicholas Keyworth when the People’s Prize winner was announced at the end of December.

Nearly 150 artworks were submitted and 65 were selected for the exhibition which ran during November and December.

Hundreds of people visited and were given the chance to vote for their favourite work.

Mr Cummings, 41, lives in Avebury with his wife Natalie, 25 and their three-year-old daughter Erin but spends much of his time working on his canal boat in Seend.

He said: “I used to do street art years ago before I went to college, using pastels on the pavement. I then went to college in Newcastle to be a print maker and left the pastels behind and didn’t touch them again until two years ago.

“Since then I have been building up a career creating portraits for people. I am now working on my canal boat and am commissioning portraits for people. Winning the exhibition competition has spurred me on to follow my dream career.

“I was so shocked when I found out that I had won because the quality of the art in the exhibition was really high.”

His portrait of Jonny Rotten, entitled We’re so Pretty… is one of his more recent works. Other portraits he has drawn from photographs include the Queen and the artist Rolf Harris.

He said: “I sent a copy of the portrait to Rolf and I received a personal thank you from him. He is a very nice man ”