I am continuously inspired by people as well as the artistic masters before me. I have a propensity to diverge artistic styles or concepts to create one juxtaposing yet striking piece of art. Previously, I’ve studied the process of ageing, illustration vs realism, abstract and realistic portrayals of emotion and I am currently studying how the renaissance has influenced contemporary art – my most ambitious project yet. Each topic has allowed me to branch out from my usual pencil work into mixed medias, such as embroidery, mono printing, ink, biro, Lino printing and now oil painting.
My sketchbook work is an important part of documenting the creative process I go through when discovering new styles, artists and creating pieces of artwork. For each page I aim to imaginatively document my research in a way that showcases my own skills and demonstrates an understanding of what I am presenting. My sketchbooks include a variety of artists linking to my topic, my own responses and experiments inspired by those artists and the chosen topic as well as gallery visits, photoshoots and a documentation of my own artistic ideas and concepts; this will all ultimately lead to a final outcome.
My eagerness to explore the different elements in art stems from other artists that have influenced me. Regularly, I visit art galleries to gain inspiration by discovering new artists and marvelling at the old. Particular exhibitions really resonated with me, sparking an interest in other domains in art and design, including Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, John Everett Millais, Christian Dior and John Stezaker.
My strength in art has always been with pencil and creating realistic portraits of the people closest to me, which led me to beginning commissions as I found myself with so much spare time during lockdown. It is incredibly successful, with friends, family and other clients coming to me to express their love for their families in my own detailed style. This allowed me to work independently and give myself the opportunity to improve my accuracy in my drawings and capture the emotion in their chosen moment; my year 12 personal study on emotion definitely helped me with this.
Currently, my investigation is based around the Renaissance, giving me the opportunity to start painting: a medium I’ve never had the confidence to use before. It does not have the flexibility of pencil but doesn’t have the permanence of acrylic and allows me to put my realistic style into colour which is exciting for me. As I practice more, I think that this will also come to be another material I will favour. As I have taken up painting, I have been able to understand the importance and value of colour through mixing hues endlessly to achieve the perfect colour match for my portraits. This intrigues me to see what the foundation course can provide with regards to discovering more elements of art. 