Laura Swale CV / portfolio
Updated May 2026
Laura Swale CV / portfolio
Career Summary
At school Laura discovered a talent for drawing and a love of art. She graduated from Bath Spa University, UK with a BA (Hons) in graphic design and illustration. Her first posts were at the Atkinson Gallery and Millfield School. She explored publishing, administration and office management while studying for a postgraduate teaching qualification in art. She then spent 15 years as a secondary school art teacher and Arts department leader in the UK and internationally, and two years as an artist in residence.
On arriving in Malta in 2016, her personal artistic practice led her to work with other visual artists and to found Allura, the award-winning visual arts company which she still operates. Then in 2019 she was appointed Arts and Culture Coordinator for the Times of Malta, a role which involved both writing and editing, and which immersed her in the broader local arts sector.
Through her company Allura, Laura showcases Malta’s contemporary fine artists by sharing their process of making. Allura also sells original art through its online gallery Allura Art. In 2023 Allura also developed and launched an art materials shop called Art Store Malta. Laura is also involved in every aspect of our projects from concept to completion.
Experience and skills
PGCE (PoCET) Art teaching qualification (MQF Level 7)
BA (Hons) Illustration / Graphic Design (MQF Level 6)
For a career summary, full qualifications and experience,
please see extended CV.
Experience
Since her first gallery role in 1998, Laura has worked in a range of creative arts-related contexts and accumulated extensive project management and administration experience and many other skills.
Artist profile
Laura Swale - portfolio website
Lead Artist, Allura In-house Art Studio
Laura Swale is a multidisciplinary visual artist and creative director specialising in large-scale, site-specific installations and cultural storytelling. As the lead artist for Allura’s in-house studio, she bridges the gap between fine art and industrial innovation, managing complex projects from conceptual manifesto to technical execution. Specialises in high-concept works that serve as a "Conceptual Warranty" for luxury real estate and public infrastructure, anchoring modern developments in local heritage.
Current / latest projects
ORA Residences: Gardens of the Elders (2025-26)
Lead artist and technical innovator for a permanent collection of five museum-grade, site-specific installations. The proprietary "Living Light" system integrates LED technology with archival mixed-media contemporary art. A cross-industry collaboration between international architects MYGG Milan, agronomist Dr. Laura Gatti and industrial engineers Viking Signrite.
Lead artist for a series of 47 original custom-designed paintings for for the hotel rooms and residences of ME Malta Hotel at Mercury Tower. A fluid, organic aesthetic was employed to resonate with the panoramic coastal scenery outside, connecting residents visually and viscerally to the timelessness of nature, while complementing the design, decor and vantage points of each individual space.
Art teaching
Laura’s work in the arts sector is heavily influenced by her teaching background. Her interest in education and learning is now reflected in projects which highlight the process of making.
Laura spent 15 years in art education as an art teacher and head of arts departments. She has taught A level, GCSE, International Baccalaureat and the Australian and Papua New Guinean curricula. She has also taught art in adult education, and a wide range of arts and crafts disciplines, such as drawing, painting, printmaking, crafts, textiles, graphic design, digital illustration, mosaic, framing, ceramics, photography, life-drawing, 3D sculpture and model-making, art history and contextual studies at secondary level up to A Level and IB. Laura has also taught French up to A Level and in advanced adult classes.
Exhibitions, events and gallery
For numerous exhibitions, private views and other arts-related events and initiatives, Laura has pitched, fund-raised and budgeted, project managed, designed, scheduled, planned, organised, operated, documented and marketed, from concept to completion. This includes writing, curating, hosting, video production, web development, branding, graphic design, reporting and monitoring.
Click here for a list of exhibitions and events
Laura established Allura and the Allura Art online gallery which have won several awards.
The Allura Art website went live in December 2020. Allura Art is a multi-faceted visual arts platform which includes an online gallery. Since Allura does not have a ‘bricks and mortar’ gallery, it organises shows and events at external venues instead.
Allura currently has over a dozen artists on its books and since it regularly onboards new artists, the Allura Art collection is continually evolving. Laura is responsible for identifying suitable artists, curating portfolios, researching and writing biographies, conducting interviews and writing articles. Allura publishes regular blog posts and operates other projects such as its Artist Secrets series and corporate artistic commissions. Through its various activities Allura showcases local talent and to date have sold around 150 original paintings.
Laura project-manages and curates Allura’s exhibitions and is responsible for coordinating every aspect from start to finish. This includes identifying venues and financing, and liaising with artists for the selection, transportation, packing and storage of works. She also deals with scheduling, insurance, security, installation, display, graphic design, video production, social media and marketing. Some exhibitions also function as open studio events during which the artists are present on site to meet the public, so this adds another dimension to the logistics. Allura also has an employee who supports with many elements of this work.
In addition to the exhibitions and events produced by Allura, Laura also planned events during her teaching career. As head of Expressive Arts at Port Moresby International School her ‘Artists of Tomorrow’ initiative brought well-known Papua New Guinean artists to the school for workshops with students. She presented artists’ work alongside that of the students in a collective exhibition which was covered by the National Courier newspaper and featured by the national TV station on prime time news.
Exhibitions and events
Project management and administration
Project management
Laura is the project manager for her company Allura, which has been recognised for its innovative arts projects and events with a number of awards and shortlistings.
In addition to the above Exhibitions and Events by Allura, she has also project-managed two series of Allura’s Artists Secrets series, successfully funding each one through Arts Council Malta, corporate sponsorships or other cultural funding schemes. She set up the Allura Art website and the website of the new online art materials shop Art Store Malta. She has project-managed Art Store Malta from research and development stage through to the post-launch marketing phase.
She has personally initiated, designed, planned and scheduled all of these projects, delivering each one within agreed timeframes and on budget. This has involved coordinating internal and external parties including artists, venue managers, service providers and various other collaborators, liaising with the media and delivering reports to funding bodies.
Budget Management
Departmental budgets
As a teacher, one of the duties of Laura’s Head of Arts Department roles was to allocate departmental budgets for students’ art materials, and music, dance and theatre equipment. she often managed to streamline these budgets to make efficiencies and invest in new resources.
Company finances and budgeting
Laura prepares quarterly company accounts, projections and sets financial targets.
Aside from establishing revenue streams, she has also secured business funding through Malta Enterprise’s Business Start and Business Development and Continuity Schemes, through two separate financial awards from the Malta Intellectual Property Awards and through private investment.
As a self-employed person she also manages her personal business accounts.
Project budgets
As director of Allura, Laura costs exhibitions, projects and programmes, secures and manages funding and monitors budgets closely to keep them on track. She also carries out financial reports for funding bodies and submits expenses.
Securing finance
Laura has secured either cash grants, sponsorships in kind, or both, from the entities listed below, almost all of which required monitoring and reporting from us, some of it extensive. All budgets were managed correctly and all associated projects were successfully delivered.
Government / EU funding
Arts Council Malta - two-time recipient of the Programme Support Fund for Allura Open Art Studios Programme
E-Commerce Grant Scheme
Malta Tourism Authority
Malta Enterprise - Beneficiary of the Business Start and Business Development and Continuity Schemes
Cultural funds
The Melita Foundation - two-time recipient
Corporate sponsorship
Grant Thornton, Campari (Farsons), Printagram, Iniala, VeeGeeBee Art and Hydrolectric.
Attard & Co
Art Store Malta was a collaboration funded by Attard & Co, pitched, costed and scheduled by Laura. Once the budget was approved, she worked closely with the CFO and accounts department to monitor spending and flag any unforeseen costs.
Attard & Co also sponsored both of Allura’s open studio programmes.
Collaboration
To deliver exhibitions and events in Malta Laura has collaborated widely, both internally with a team and externally. She has worked with 30 venues, 6 corporate sponsors, 16 Allura artists (and a further 54 if we count the Allura Artists of The Trail in 2018), funding bodies such as Arts Council Malta and Malta Enterprise / Business First, The Malta Tourism Authority, The Melita Foundation and The Social Impact Awards. She also works with The Sovereign Art Foundation and Attard & Co.
Skills and abilities
Ability to lead, organise and plan
Laura’s first leadership roles were in an educational setting where she managed departments with courses in multiple subjects, not always in her specialist fields. She has designed, led and developed new projects, initiatives and art courses while carrying a full-time personal teaching load and managing other teachers and implementing their performance management strategies.
She also worked during the holidays on cruise ships and at summer schools and led large groups of English language students on excursions to visit tourist attractions around the country. These experiences equipped her well for becoming an entrepreneur with employees and for leading projects involving large numbers of people with diverse nationalities and languages.
Both roles required leadership, organisational and people management skills.
Communication and interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills and networking
On arrival in Malta Laura focused heavily on networking as a means not only to establish business connections, but as the best way to familiarise herself with her sector locally and those who operated within it. Her networking efforts enabled her to establish a collective of artists for her business and a growing social media following of several thousand (Malta Artists Facebook group - 8,000+ members) for her activities promoting the Arts.
She has pitched to a wide range of local organisations and companies and managed to secure sponsors for her business, land endorsements and set up collaborations. She has been invited to judge art competitions, speak at events and guest-lecture at the University of Malta.
She has been involved in various business networking organisations, start-up presentations and events, conferences, summits, seminars and award ceremonies. She has appeared on television, radio and in print media.
Presentation and communication skills
As a teacher Laura presented daily to large groups over a period of fifteen years. The skills she acquired during her teaching career were highly transferable. This people-facing role gave her a vast amount of public speaking experience. Since becoming an entrepreneur she has pitched and presented in a business environment at conferences, seminars and networking events including the Malta Innovation Summit, the Malta Social Impact Awards, Malta’s Women in Business conference and many others. She has pitched projects hundreds of times in meetings to potential sponsors, partners and collaborators and spoken at our events to welcome guests and introduce her company and its work. She is the host of video series Artist Secrets, a guest speaker at the University of Malta and is also also on the judging panel of several art competitions.
Media appearances and interviews
Artist Secrets - Laura Swale interviews local artists in this behind-the-scenes series by Allura
Allura’s video pitch for social impact awards - Laura Swale pitches a project to win funding
Television
Live on Illum ma’ Steph promoting The Big Show
Laura Swale interviews Olafur Eliasson about Earthspeakr
Live open call for The Trail with Ben Camille on TVM’s Twelve to 3
Live on Illum ma’ Steph with artists of The Trail
Live on Kultura News talking about The MACC
Live with Professor Richard England on Illum ma’ Steph
Writing and editing
For our exhibitions and events, Laura is exclusively responsible for writing all exhibition-related text, from labels and signage to exhibition statements, artist biographies, artwork descriptions, artist interviews, news articles, press releases and press packs and other printed materials. she also designs posters which require text, social media posts, lists of works, invitations and all other marketing materials and graphic design.
Laura achieved top grades in English language and literature exams at school. She also spent two years in France studying for the Baccalauréat and therefore has French as a second language. She proof-read extensively while in publishing, then as a teacher marked essays, exams, homework and other teachers’ reports, both in English and French. She also moderated exams and peer marking, and wrote and designed courses and assessments.
Laura writes content for her own company Allura, including its blog posts, social media and event marketing. She has also written for national media, most notably as Arts and Culture Coordinator for the Times of Malta (see below).
Arts and Culture Coordinator for the Times of Malta
As Arts and Culture Coordinator for the Times of Malta Laura was responsible for the weekly 12-page Arts and Entertainment section of the Sunday newspaper. This involved identifying and creating suitable written and photographic content, fielding requests for inclusion, coordinating writers and reviewers, proof-reading, editing and verifying all content and collating a weekly ‘What’s On’ guide. She also wrote articles herself (links below). In addition to visual arts, she was occasionally called upon to write a Times of Malta editorial. She also covered other arts-related areas including music, literature, theatre, dance, film, cultural events and the impact of COVID-19 on the arts sector.
Press articles, blog posts and artist biographies
Blogs
Blog - Allura Art blog 68 blog posts to date (2020 - 2023)
Blog - Art Store Malta 8 blog posts to date (2023)
Artist biographies
Artist biographies - Allura Art
Click to open each artist’s profile to read their full biography.
Press articles - visual arts
Times of Malta
2023
2022
Can painting co-exist with the realities of motherhood?
The church as muse - timeless beauty or icon of the past?
Artists on International Women’s Day
Malta Independent
2021
Big time sensuality - abstract art - the beautiful stranger
To Malta with Love - Laura Swale talks to Malta’s landscape painters
Times of Malta
2020
Art - the gift that keeps on giving
Music for the eyes - the artist as maestro
Passing on the paintbrush - Earthspeakr by Olafur Eliasson
When artists become activists - Earthspeakr by Olafur Eliasson
The bold and the beautiful - a new contemporary art gallery in Marsascala
When life gives you lemons - Digital arts students discuss the digital shift
Laura Swale talks to artist activists about their new campaign
Laura Swale talks to the author and illustrator of a COVID-19 children’s book
Laura Swale explores the effects of quarantine on visual artists
Quarantine Creativity - how artist Bob Cardona is handling life indoors
Laura Swale interviews artist Gorg Mallia about solo show
Malta’s got talent - the Sovereign Student Art Prize
Laura Swale meets artist jewellers before Society of Arts show
Putting Malta on the watercolour map
Painting the light fantastic - Mark Muscats new show
It’s a man’s world - Margarita Pule curates feminist art exhibition
2019
Gala at Valletta Contemporary art gallery
Laura Swale meets artist Damian Darmanin and Professor Richard England
Laura Swale explores new makerspace for artists and creatives
Professor Raphael Vella discusses new exhibition celebrating female students
Major art competition seeks the next big thing
Press articles - non-visual arts
Times of Malta
2020
Events cancelled - Laura Swale talks to the protagonists
How coronavirus cancellations have hit the entertainment industry
After the storm - how will COVID-19 impact the arts?
COVID-19 and the future of the book industry
Art and culture online - is it ok not to pay?
The blooming power of Viennese elegance
Valletta to sparkle in festive operatic extravaganza
The magic of a golden era - a glittering show to raise the roof
2019
Bringing sexy back - when opera meets burlesque
Proficiency with software
Throughout her varied career Laura has used MS Office suite programs such as Excel, Word and more recently the Google Drive versions of these applications. She use Powerpoint, Outlook and various online applications such as Trello and GANTT chart creation websites. She is also proficient in web-design using Squarespace and Wix which she used to design websites for Allura Art and Art Store Malta. She uses Photoshop for graphic design and image manipulation, including all of Allura’s exhibition posters, guides and marketing materials to date.
In 2021 she learned how to use Final Cut Pro to edit video. She has carried out post-production for the Artist Secrets series and all Allura’s video content since then. She also uses Sketchup to create 3D visualisations. She can physically measure up a space to create floorplans, elevations and 3D visuals, and can then design custom furniture to fit the space and commission a carpenter to make it. She has also previously used Adobe InDesign and Illustrator.
Whenever there has been a skills gap, Laura has identified provision and secured funding for training. She has twice had training financed for herself and her colleague through the Jobsplus scheme Investing in Skills.
Research
Laura’s work in the Maltese arts sector requires constant research, to keep abreast of what’s happening in her field and to remain relevant within it. She also carries out research for projects, for commercial purposes, for funding applications and competitive pitches, such as at the Social Impact Awards and the Malta Innovation Summit. Her many sources include Arts Council Malta surveys, NSO publications, EU reports, art market studies and local media.
She also recently designed and conducted her own survey. The Malta Artists Survey was a series of around 80 questions aimed at local artists about various aspects of their practice. Over 300 artists responded, providing very valuable information. Laura came up with the idea, costed the exercise, devised the questions, set up the online questionnaire, published and marketed it and organised a prize draw for the random winner. She also collated and analysed the results.
Gallery practices and standards
Laura has coordinated many exhibitions for other artists and students. She therefore has a good understanding of gallery practices and standards and how to best care for and showcase original art. She recently supported the Corinthia in Attard to equip their hotel foyer with lighting and hanging rails to host exhibitions, and did the same for Attard & Co for their new venue The Drawing Room. To protect the art they installed security cameras where necessary and addressed the issue of insurance in artist contracts. To protect venues she does not affix artworks with nails or stick labels to walls. Prior to transportation of artworks she provides artists with packing instructions, and to ensure the safe return of artwork she takes ownership of re-packaging unsold work. Where paintings are sold she ensure customers view the work prior to handover and sign paperwork to confirm they are undamaged upon delivery.
Copyright, licensing and contracts
For each project, event or exhibition, even if not required by the funding body, Laura produces contracts for artists and venues, which, amongst other things, cover copyright of artwork. For her first few projects she sought assistance with this from lawyers and secured funding to pay them for their services.
Laura has an understanding of intellectual property protection having secured various trademarks for Allura and Art Store Malta through the commerce department. She has experience drafting and negotiating professional service agreements, having done so with Attard & Co for their collaborative project Art Store Malta. Together with a lawyer, she also negotiated an investment agreement for her company.
She also drafted the contract (terms and conditions) for artists joining the Allura Art gallery.
Terms and conditions for artists - Allura Art (Password: demo)
Laura is personally responsible for packing and transportation of artworks for shows, and coordinated shipments from overseas during her first gallery role in the UK.
CV - extended
Employment
Founder and Director Allura Limited Current
Arts and Culture Coordinator Times of Malta 2019 - 2020
Interior design and Sales Form Ltd, Malta 2017
Graphic and web designer Wired Ducks Ltd 2016 - 2017
Teacher (Art / DT / Textiles) Ryde Academy 2015 - 2016
Teacher of Art / Photography Bishopshalt School 2014 – 2015
Head of Art Wisdom School 2013 - 2014
Artist in Residence Leighton Park School 2011 - 2013
Teacher Christ the King College 2010 - 2011
Teacher of Art & Textiles Oasis Academy 2008 - 2010
HOD Expressive Arts (and Coordinator of French)
Port Moresby International School, Papua New Guinea Jan 2006 - Dec 2007
Office Manager Nightingale Architects 2002 - 2004
Art Teacher Millfield School 1998 - 2000
Gallery Administrator Atkinson Gallery 1998 - 2000
Plus further teaching, gallery, publishing, retail and administrative roles up to 2007 (Details available on request).
Qualifications
PGCE (PoCET) Teaching Qualification
(Post Compulsory Education & Training)
Cardiff Metropolitan University 2005
DALF (Masters level French)
Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française
French Ministry of Education
Cardiff University 2003
BA Hons Illustration / Graphic Design
Bath Spa University 1997
A Levels (A grades in Art and French)
Ynysawdre School 1993
Baccalauréat de Français
Lycée Auguste Renoir, Limoges France
GCSEs (5xA, 2xB & 1xC grades)
Llanilltud Fawr Comprehensive 1990
Contact information
Laura Swale
Flat 4
Oliva Flats
59 St Vincent Street
Sliema
SLM 1442
laura@allura.mt
+356 99583389