Meet Angus, creator of the 2026 Deakin Library bag artwork
As O‑Week rolls around, the Library is excited to share this year’s Library Bag featuring original artwork by Angus Matthews (he/him, @oldmanstanley_), a second‑year Marine Science student based at Waurn Ponds.
Angus’s artwork was created in response to the simple but thought-provoking yearly prompt for the Library Artwork competition: What does the library mean to you? His answer, and his art, reflect the Library as a place of connection, creativity, and shared experience.
Our Deakin Library Comms team spent some time asking him about his inspiration for the artwork and his connection to the library.
Finding connection in the Library
For Angus, the Library is part of his everyday university life. It’s where he studies “like nearly every other day.”
It’s not just about getting work done but about being together. Angus often studies with his girlfriend and friends, using the Library as a space to connect while staying productive.
“It’s a great way that we can spend time together and be productive and get work done, but still … be together and friends as well.”
Having a physical space to learn has made a big difference to Angus’s university experience, particularly after starting his studies during COVID.
“To actually be able to come in and have a physical space where you can learn, that’s what high school was like.” The Library “just made uni a lot more approachable in my eyes.”
From sketchbook to Library bag
Angus’s artwork began, as many of his pieces do, with sketches in a notebook.
He describes “always start[ing with] just like sketching things out in my notebook.”
Inspired by the Waurn Ponds campus and the Library’s surroundings, Angus imagined a figure in the foreground, with nature flowing through the composition.
“The idea in my head of that pond out there was big in my mind and then just wanted to frame it like, having a person in the foreground. A lot of my artwork revolves around people … there’s like very natural and flowing landscapes, which is just, you know, that’s how this space feels to me”
Nature plays a central role in the final design. Not just visually, but emotionally.
For Angus, the artwork he created reflects “how this space feels to me. It’s just very natural… and that’s inspired the artwork pretty much as a whole.”
A shared student experience
When thinking about what the Library means to him, Angus kept coming back to one idea: collective experience.
“We might not all talk to each other, we might not all know each other, but we’re all just in here doing the same thing, and it feels great.”
It’s a feeling many students will recognise studying side by side, laptops open, coffees in hand. He drew experience from Maiya Steele’s artwork from last year, featuring this imagery.
“It’s such a shared experience. So we all come in, we get caffeinated, and we get to work.”
For students starting uni this year, Angus sees the Library as an essential space for grounding and connection.
“It’s that secondary space where things can get so cerebral and in your head… it just grounds it all. It’s like, come to the library. This is where it can all be real.”
Not your “traditional” library
Angus also loves that the Library offers different ways to be, whether you’re looking for quiet focus or social study.
“It’s not like other libraries where you sort of banish to silence and it’s a scary, quiet place.”
To Angus, the Library feels open and flexible.
“If you want that quiet space, it’s there and it’s clearly marked. But it’s not a traditional library where everyone’s hiding away, which is great.”
What Angus hopes you’ll take away
Above all, Angus hopes his artwork featured on this year’s Library bag helps students feel at ease. He wants new students to see the Library as “natural and easy.” He has designed it as if you can see yourself, as a Deakin student, in the artwork. In a way, “it involves you and it’s not separate from you.”
The artwork is designed to invite different kinds of engagement, just like the Library itself.
“You can sit here and you can read into it if you want to, or you can just look at it for one moment and go, ‘that’s pretty.’”
Get your Library bag at O‑Week
You can grab a free Library bag featuring Angus’s artwork during O‑Week, 23–27 February 2026. Be quick, as they disappear very quickly. Whether you’re carrying books, a laptop, or just your everyday essentials, it’s a little reminder that the Library is a place to study, connect and belong.