'In the process of developing my final outcome for my personal project, my aim was to express my own personal experiences and emotions on the topic of racism, injustice and discrimination. I was initially drawn towards this theme because as a ethnic minority myself I have come into contact with many forms of racism, unequal opportunities and discrimination almost my whole life. I thought that with a subject that I could relate on many levels with my experiences and emotions, I could transform this into an art piece. Truthfully, at the start of this project I was slightly worried about expressing my own relations to the theme, as we live in such a broken and injustice society not everyone wants to hear about the topic of ‘racism or discrimination’. However, since the recent protests in 2020 after the death of many innocent black individuals in the USA, I also wanted to use not only my voice but my artistic abilities to speak out as much as I could and educate people on these matters. Overtime my project begins to unfold and demonstrates my skills and abilities in displaying my project theme. For my final piece, I toyed around with a few ideas that would present this theme perfectly. Eventually I settled with the concept of reflecting the idea of hope and justice through a portrait which was placed in the center of two other hessian panels. The portrait in the center represents hope either through actions like city marches or effective social media posts raising awareness. The portrait stands in the middle of a ‘divided society we live in’ and acts as a bridge between the two. The portrait is of a young girl who is my neighbour who I looked after before lockdown and still kept in contact with her over the fence during the pandemic. She is someone who is full of joy and happiness and always looks to the positive side of things. In the past we have spoken about the topics of being Black Girls and how our skin colour are different to our friends. As a young girl growing up, I never had someone to talk to about being Black and what that meant for me in the future. I only went through the experiences to understand. Overall, this project has been enjoyable and interesting to research and complete. Though at some stages it got emotional to research, write down interviews and experiences but, has made me understand more about racism and things we as society can do to make a change and help everyone who feels and looks different feel excepted.'

'Investigation into various art styles that take inspiration from popular culture, as well as how contemporary art and illustration has changed over time'

'In the summer of 2019, I travelled to Mbale in the east of Uganda to visit and work with a community development outreach charity. I spent two weeks immersed in a cultural environment which was completely different to anything I had encountered before. The purpose of my personal study was to build on my observations of Uganda and explore how the culture could be expressed through art.

What struck me most about Uganda during my visit was the warmth and generosity of the people I met, their bright, colourful clothing, and the happiness of the dancing and singing that seemed to be part of everyday life. It was humbling that people could maintain such a joyful attitude to life despite most of them living in poverty. I explored how Ugandan artists reflect hardship in their art by using scraps of waste materials and monochromatic colour schemes. I discovered how bold use of colour communicates uplifting feelings of joy and I investigated contrasting monochrome and colour in one image. I also experimented with the physical craft techniques of braiding and weaving that feature prominently in the lives of Ugandan women.

My final piece features a young Ugandan woman, drawing the viewer’s attention to the youth of the Ugandan population whose median age is 17. I have depicted her as twins, one as a rich, vibrant coloured painting and one as a simple, black and white biro drawing to present to the viewer the two different faces of Ugandan culture I observed - hardship and joy. The twins’ hair is made from paper braids, using paper printed with colourful fabric patterns on one side and newspaper on the other. The braids are interwoven at the centre of the piece, highlighting to the viewer the tension between hardship and joy as one tries to overwhelm the other. The braids are free flowing to illustrate the freedom of dancing and music and they extend below the canvas to reflect how cultural history is passed down through generations.'

• 'An installation piece made of rope and knots to represent and expose how many influencers are silently suffering poor mental health and to symbolise how complicated it is.

• Silhouettes in Adam Riches style to show the distortion of images on social media compared to the reality of the image'

• 'Explore how protest can be shown by artists

• Incorporate street art styles and create a mural of this

• Create an inspiring image which sends multiple message shown by symbols'

'The theme of my personal project was “The interaction between people and public space: the ephemeral nature of crowds capturing individuals’ position and body language”. I was particularly interested in studying this subject matter as I find that crowds create an ephemeral moment in which figures coincide to form a unique configuration, and thereby studying this scene can create something abstract yet familiar. Although traditionally, crowds tended to represent the joining of people at certain events, I felt that it was equally interesting to study individuals in a mundane environment. The aim of my project was to represent the interaction between people and public space and focus on the communication rather than on the figures singly. Especially because of the Covid-19 pandemic, I felt that it was vital to focus on how we have managed to stay connected to one another as connection does not necessarily always mean by physical and face-to-face contact. Using online resources, we as humans have been able to maintain our interaction with others.

My final outcome is an installation that reflects techniques mainly used by contemporary artists Anna Pinkster and Claire Harvey. The piece was set in a polytunnel which aims to immerse the viewer and create depth. To overemphasise the depth I strategically placed larger figures and the front and smaller figures at the back. The materials I chose to use were acrylic paint and willow charcoal to create a contrast between wet and dry media. How I chose to embody ‘interaction’ was through the use of thread sewn between the people. The colour of the thread was a dark orange as this symbolises social interaction. I drew and painted the figures using a monochromatic colour palette to accentuate the orange thread as the critical part of my piece was to portray connection and communication. As a whole, my final piece aimed to recognise the importance of human interaction within society and present this in a way that would immerse the viewer into an illusion of a crowd.'

'The unconscious mind and sleep as a depiction of innocence and serenity

The theme of my project derived from my interest in Psychology especially after reading the theories of Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, specifically his works on the unconscious and his analysis of dreams. My project’s aim was to explore how the complicacy of dreams and the unconscious mind could be depicted in a visual form through interlinking abstraction with realism. In contrast to the chaotic nature of dreaming, sleep is often seen as a form of innocence and I felt combining the peculiarity and chaos of dreams with the calmness and serenity of sleep created an interesting contrast and dynamic.

My final outcome of this project was an installation piece including sculptures, a projection and panels of drawings. Inspired by the works of György Jovánovics, the sculptures were made from plaster and moulded to look like pillows to portray the theme of sleep as a depiction of innocence and serenity. Each sculpture was hung up with fishing wire at different levels to appear as if they were ‘floating’ creating a surreal atmosphere. The portraits were produced using willow charcoal on paper and as willow charcoal is a fairly loose media, I was able use it expressively by smudging and blending to create movement and energy, conveying the motion of sleep. To add texture to each panel, I used white tissue paper in which I crumpled to replicate the creases of bed sheets. The element that portrays the unconscious mind was the projection on the hanging fabric which consisted of a digitally illustrated film I created inspired by the patterns and colours found in Ryan Tippery’s work. The film aims to depict the ambiguity and complexity of dreams through intricate and abstract patterns that move to form different configurations.'