Select a region
Life with Tourette's syndrome, hidden battles with mental health, the "blood and flesh" behind make-up, and cultural heritage are among the highly personal topics explored by a set of Jersey students in a moving exhibition.
Artwork from Hautlieu's IB students has been on display in the 'Human Nature' Exhibition the Link Gallery this month.
As part of the IB Diploma Programme Visual Arts, the four students at Hautlieu have produced a body of work over their two years of study. This exhibition makes up 40% of their final grade in IB Visual Arts.
The artists taking part in the exhibition are: Ors Varga (17), Chloe Tilley (17), Mia Richard (18), and Erin Price (18).
Each body of work focuses on a topic personal to them as an individual, as they explained to Express...
Pictured: Ors Varga's work is inspired by his own family history.
Ors Varga, whose work explores cultural and historical heritage through architecture, explained: "For 'Human Nature', I was inspired by my personal and family history as well as the context of where I come from.
"When people are visiting the exhibition and looking at my artworks, I want them to be able to perceive the contrasts of my cultural and historical heritage through the architecture, but the emotion that people feel should be up to them, as my artwork isn't necessarily made to induce any emotion, but more a visual representative of the contrasts of where I originate, my personal and family history."
Pictured: Erin Price's work is a visual representation of her experiences with Tourette's syndrome.
Erin Price's work aims to visually depict her own experiences with Tourette's syndrome, by aiming to capture the moment of each attack.
"Something fascinating about art is its ability to visually express ideas which may be difficult to convey using words: often thoughts, feelings and experiences," she explained. "This ultimately provided inspiration for this exhibition: an exploration of Tourette’s syndrome and my personal experience living with it."
She added: "Each piece featured was inspired by a photo taken in the middle of a purposefully triggered, recorded ‘tic attack’, which formed the basis for the exhibition. When taking photos, the location needed to be a natural environment, allowing a sense of honesty to the piece.
"Therefore, each piece was based off photos taken in my bedroom, a comfortable environment, where moments such as this are common and unrecorded."
Pictured: Chloe Tilley's work explores femininity and societal expectations, inspired by her skincare routine.
Using grotesque wire figures and stark, unvarnished portraits, Chloe Tilley's work is inspired by her own make-up routine.
She said: "I would always be uncomfortable with my skin whenever I broke out however after trying to remove it with chemicals and scrubbers, my face would look worse and unhealthy. My appearance displayed what I thought to be a representation of my most inner self- blood and flesh.
"Creating this artwork was a personal exploration which I feel that many can relate to. As how can we even know what’s gruesome or not? In modern day society, women everywhere are taking charge of their bodies and embracing their own femininity even if it is obscure to the 'male gaze'."
Pictured: Mia Richard's work explores the hidden side of mental illness.
Finally, Mia Richard's work aims to expose the hidden battle fought daily by those suffering from mental illness.
She said: "In my experiences of both being affected by poor mental health and seeing people I know go through crises with their mental health, there are common themes and motifs which I have tried to show in my pieces.
"The first being the hiding of the illness; often people with poor mental health seem to appear as normal, well-adjusted people, but beneath are hiding struggle and pain."
She added: "Some people choose to hide it and others are simply overlooked and don’t get noticed for their indivisible illness. Another aspect I found when I was struggling, was the feeling of losing oneself."
'Human Nature' is completely free to visit - and there's not long left to see it. The exhibition will be on display at the Link Gallery next to Jersey Museum until Saturday 25 March.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.