AN art prize voted for by visitors to a London gallery has been awarded to a Hereford artist.

Mark Finch, from Bullingham Lane, was one of only a few artists that were selected by The New English Art Club from a list of over 1,300 to be displayed in the Mall Galleries, which is within site of Buckingham Palace.

Visitors to the gallery are then given the opportunity to select the picture that they most like and his picture Circean Poisons came first with 27 percent of the votes.

Winning the Windsor and Newton Award means Mr Finch will be given art materials worth £500.

Mr Finch said: "It was lovely- the painting got 27 percent of the votes and there was a lot of competition. I was overjoyed with it."

The artist is currently working on paintings which depict classic Greek myths with a modern day twist.

Circean Poisons is set in Hereford's High Town and based around the May Fair, with its origins in the classic Greek tale of the Odyssey.

In the myth, witch-goddess Circe (seated on the helter-skelter in the painting) turns Odysseus' men into pigs as a punishment for their poor, gluttonous behaviour at a feast thrown in their honour.

Mr Finch said of his modern take on the myth that it "casts a spotlight on the attitudes in, and behaviour of, today's society."

Critiquing contemporary masculinity, the men in the painting don pig masks, drink to excess, and run amok at the funfair.

Mr Finch grew up in rural Herefordshire before going to Queen Mary College, London and graduating with a degree in human geography.

He went travelling and when returning to the UK he continued his education by training as an art teacher at the University of Central England.

He returned to London where he spent several years teaching art in a number of secondary schools followed by a rewarding career at a Pupil Referral Unit.

He then returned to Herefordshire and this year he has been able to focus more on his own paintings.

He said of the county: "It is beautiful countryside to get away from the chaos of the city. I can continue doing what I am doing in a more serene environment."

This year Mr Finch has also won the Urban Landscape Award from the RBSA Gallery in Birmingham.