Guernsey Students Prize 2022

I wanted to convey the size and scale of some of the objects in our night sky. The Milky Way’s great spiral arms wrap around the whole celestial sphere, however the ground obscures half of this. On the right of this image is the Core of the Milky Way, giving off a yellowish glow in the south. The Milky Way then arches across almost 180 degrees to the north/ northeast passing overhead with a dense region of stars in the constellation of Cygnus. This image took a 9-panel panorama, composed of 9 images with a 1-minute exposure time which, when stitched together, creates a wide enough field of view to see the whole Milky Way arch. The Milky Way is not actually arched like this, but with this wide field of view either the ground or the Milky Way ends up distorted creating an arch shape.

A self-portrait largely inspired by Sickert which was made to correspond with a similar portrait of my father to express how we both felt following him separating from my mother. Combined with my anticipation for moving to the UK to study in the following year, I wanted to express how I started to care less about the present in favour of anticipating what I looked forward to in the near future.

This work was made in response to the separation of my parents and how my siblings and I have delt with these difficulties. The main influence for this piece of work was Robert Rauschenberg and his silk-screens prints he created in the mid-1960’s.

A triptych inspired by the three wise monkeys but focuses on the effects of ageing such as difficulty seeing or hearing and problems with speaking (out). From my main project theme, I chose to do this to illustrate how these struggles cause isolation in older people after speaking to my grandparents about their experiences. I took influence from Lucian Freud because he was able to exaggerate the human form to an almost discomforting level and I wanted to emphasize ageing details like my grandparents’ wrinkles. By using oil paint, I was able to create a more textured appearance to make the portraits more lifelike and realistic.

Taking inspiration from current and historical architecture around the island, I created lots of these small sketches, focusing on texture and the buildings’ traditional details. I wanted to present them as a combined piece, so I assembled them with this interesting layered effect. I think this brings the sketches to life, by adding some shadow and a third dimension.

In tribute to a significant figure in the movement for Climate Change and Global Conservation of Nature: Sir David Attenborough. I chose to dedicate this piece to Attenborough as he has educated and opened the eyes of millions of people worldwide in regards to the natural world, using his platform to educate and speak on overlooked issues regarding the climate change crisis and mass extinction of species. I spent approximately 15 hours on this drawing using graphite.

In year 10, I created my piece whilst studying the theme of ‘Everyday Objects’. I was inspired by a collection of impressionist paintings I found on Pinterest. They were bold, high contrast and colourful. I set up compositions of objects sourced from my kitchen, stacking cups was my favourite. From this photoshoot and with inspirations in mind, I decided to produce an acrylic painting, focusing on light and dark with bold brushstrokes.

I named the painting Balancing Life as life is composed of so many features which all need to be controlled so that it does not collapse. The stack of cups are finely balanced so as not to fall and break into pieces as is the case in everything around us whether it’s the natural habitat or day-to-day life.

My love of drawing with pencil and the idea of creating a surreal portrait has produced this image. I feel like the viewer is looking into the mind of the young woman as she contemplates life.

I took inspiration from the artist Ian McCue for this painting. It is of an abandoned dog. My dog Lola was the ideal subject for getting the shape right and then I added rusted plates and parts to give a robotic appearance for a twist.

Inspired in part by the street art of Teddy Baden, I produced a piece using stencils and spray paints. The portrait is a stylised and fun abstraction of my dog.

Although improved from previous centuries, gender equality is still a prevalent fight in society. I recognize my place of privilege as someone who has received an education from a young age, but there are many girls and women across the globe that are still fighting for this human right. An incredible advocate for women’s education, is Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai. I find Malala incredibly inspiring. She was just 16 when she delivered a speech at the United Nations on the need for gender equality and is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. By adding gender-based statistical findings around her portrait I hope to convey this gross injustice which her progressive work challenges.

Reflecting emotion through both movement and colour, the aim of the piece is to reflect an inner feeling outwardly. The emotion of my subject is subtle, yet emphasised with the colour and movement of the ‘powder’. Inspired by works by Jimmy Law, the placement of the powder and the areas which are covered emphasise areas of the face which commonly communicate through colour, such as the red in cheeks, reflecting embarrassment or anger the forehead for stress. Much of the face is coloured in orange to reflect the ‘explosive’ emotion. I focused on the style of realism for this piece.

I focused on the vibrant colours and the interesting environment within a pool. Following a photoshoot, I used acrylic paint to capture the bright colours from the image. The bubble helps to link the human with the underwater environment underlining how we must help it due to our damage on it. This painting also focuses on natural forms and shows how vibrant colours attract and intrigue us.

I was drawn to the creation of a sense of visceral emotion from subject, composition and object and how they interact with each other. I wanted to explore composition and emotion in relationship to someone I know particular well to see how that understanding of personality or “aura”; would translate to the canvas, this is what drove my creation of my first large scale composition entitled “Zac”.

I was inspired by Frida Kahlo to create a self-portrait on the theme of medical mistreatment of women and AFAB people. Kahlo’s iconic self-portraits are highly symbolic in nature, and also often included anatomical imagery, which I have been investigating this past year. Like Kahlo, my painting includes many symbolic objects like pills and a syringe (to represent healthcare), and I also included a heart and uterus, as both are deeply symbolic and significant organs which featured in Kahlo’s own art. The aim of my piece is to highlight an important societal issue, and hopefully start a few important conversations.

Our world is rapidly changing from green space and forests to built-up urban areas, with alarming rates of deforestation depreciating the beauty of our surroundings whilst enhancing other global environmental concerns such as climate change. Inspired by Ivan Shishkin, the accuracy and detail of my oil painting reflects the beauty of the forest and provides a sense of the feeling often experienced within natural environments. This contrasts with the black and white drawing of the buildings to emphasise changes seen as developments appear and forests are lost.

I was drawn to the work of Francisco J. Jimenez due to his interesting use of a variety of media in order to create the textures observed in his originals. When relating to my Aleve l theme of the toxicity perpetuated throughout the world of ballet and identifying the factors which contribute to the perpetuation of a certain, often unattainable, body type, I wanted to look at an artist’s style whom I may look to apply to this theme. One of the main characteristics featured, alongside the typical use of a neutral colour pallet and nude subjects were the harsh, black lines often used to outline the bodies; something I felt was stark and unforgiving, reflecting the nature of ballet institutions’ outlook on body type.

This is a mixed media piece showing the St Peter Port harbor bombing which took place on the 28th June 1940, when 3 German planes mistook Guernsey tomato lorries for military vehicles and proceeded to bomb the harbor. This air raid killed 34 people and injured 33. I used an account by Malcom Woodland, who was a boy at the time of the raid, and he explained what he saw and how his family took shelter. This account helped provide me with visuals to base my piece off.

My body of work explores the issue of sexual abuse. It’s a topic which has been increasingly at the centre of conversation in recent years, especially after the death of Sarah Everard which was so publicised at the start of 2021. This particular piece explores how the attitude of society worsens the culture of rape that allows horrific events like this to happen. Boys will be Boys is a phrase used to excuse the actions of male perpetrators, instead of holding them accountable. I therefore contrasted this with the obvious distress of the figure to show the real damage abusers cause. I used the artist Barbara Kruger as inspiration for this piece. Her influences can be seen in my work through the use of text, and the red, white and black colour palette. I want this artwork to inspire a shift in attitudes that will benefit not only victims but society as a whole.