SWINDON ART FEATURE: Don't listen to the ill-informed critics who say Swindon has no culture. The town's art scene is thriving - you just have to know where to look. BARRIE HUDSON reports.

SWINDON has no culture. Such is the lazy refrain of third-rate comedians, sneering metropolitan commentators and people who have never visited but believe everything they read or hear.

In fact, culture thrives across the borough, and particularly in the world of art.

For one thing, the town is home to the Swindon Collection of Modern British Art, rated by many experts as the finest such collection outside London (although the Museum and Art Gallery in Bath Road is, admittedly, too tiny to be able to display anything but a fraction of the works at any one time).

Howard Hodgkin, Augustus John and LS Lowry are among the artists represented.

But Swindon has plenty of artistic talent of its own, albeit often engaged in a frustrating search for venues in which to display their work.

And those artists are less than pleased with Swindon's image as a place devoid of culture.

Typical is Blackpool-born painter, sculptor and ceramicist Steve Valentine, 40. He came to Swindon 12 years ago and says he has never looked back, having staged the first of a series of successful exhibitions in 1998.

He said: "People who say we have no culture are talking a load of rubbish.

"I could list 47 talented Swindon artists who are all doing different things."

The problem, he believes, is that few people in the public or private sector are able to offer artists space to display and sell their work.

He added: "What people do not realise is that, as local artists, we should have venues which are exclusively ours. I could fill a room with art."

But there is not a complete dearth of places for both established and up-and-coming Swindon artists to display their talents.

The Victoria pub on Victoria Road and the Beehive in Prospect place both devote most of their walls to showcasing paintings of all kinds.

The Roaring Donkey in Albert Street and the Kings in Wood Street also display art.

And there are regular exhibitions at the Arts Centre in Old Town, the Wyvern Theatre and local libraries and community centres.