Third time’s a charm for one Malling artist, who has been accepted into the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition.

Richard Bilous is having his work ...rearwindow... featured at the exhibition in Burlington House, Piccadilly until Sunday, August 21.

He called it a “thrilling experience” and said he would “savour every minute”.

Having had a passion for art from a young age, the 69-year-old only started properly pursuing it as a hobby in 2007 after his retirement.

As a stroke of luck, Mr Bilous’ Friars View neighbour is a retired art professor, David Mackereth, who helped him to make larger scale pieces based on his interest in photography.

The piece for the Royal Academy consists of 30 images of the back of people’s heads, which were taken each day of April 2015.

This work was part of a larger project that the retired headmaster undertook, which was to take a photo every day of the year through 2015.

“In my opinion, to view a photo of the back of someone’s head forces us to question our usual assumptions and judgements about people and look for different clues to establish such things as the subject’s ethnicity, age, gender, etc.,” he said.